DEVIL BLADE REBOOT (SHIGATAKE GAMES) - coming to Steam

[Some-Mist]

Normal is quite easy if you're playing for survival. Every bomb restores your shield, so bomb away! (This is not the case for Hard, and definitely not the case for Inferno.)

yeah, the only reason my run ended up stage 4 is because I was playing aggressively and trying to point blank everything accidentally running into enemies. Hard will likely be the way to go for some serious runs.
how many stages are there?

[RobotParking]

Just picked it up. This is excellent so far. Got to stage 5 just goofing around.

Edit: ah, okay, looks like there's 6 stages.

[DestroyTheCore]

This game's presentation might be the best I've seen in the genre since Crimzon Clover. There's been a lot of amazing STG's since then, but they're almost always missing something aesthetically for me.
Maybe explosions are not bombastic enough. They'll go all in on music but severely lacking in SFX. Poor contrast in terms of just appealing visual depth on individual sprites. Bland enemy visuals and minimal animation frames to everything. Or a major lack of punch to the player's own firepower (this one especially bothers me).

This game has everything I could want. It's a real treat on the senses. And it's nice to have Shigatake's artwork in this genre. And of course, the game plays as good as it looks. I'm having a lot of fun on Hard mode.

I definitely agree with everything you said! This game checks out everything I have wanted in a shmup for a really long time. I have barely spent 2 hours on that game and it might easily be in my top 10 of all time.

[-Fish-]

The dev has unfortunately made a pretty big blunder with the scoring system.

When credit feeding player score does not reset to zero and still uploads to the online leaderboard.

It's a wonderful STG besides this black mark. I'm really hoping this issue is merely a bug.


EDIT: Dev responded and informed that there is a 10% score reduction when using a continue.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

I'd like to hear what our in-house resident shmupper, BIL, has to say about Devil Blade Reboot. How about it, BIL?

Shigatake has posted that he had been working on DBR for six and a half years during his free time (aside from his full-time job working for Vanillaware) -- hence the already well-known high production and world-class values associated with it.

DBR feels like it's a dedicated arcade STG release considering it's currently at v1.0 with the Steam port release. Yes, I agree with shmupper XoPachi about DBR being right up there with Crimson Clover (in terms of overall development and well-rounded gameplay and game mechanics designed from the ground up). Developing a world-class doujin STG title certainly does take time, however long that may be, is anyone's guess at best.

Sure, there's always room for improvements with patches to fix whatever issues arise within DBR itself with the hardcore high-level STG purists/players. Is it even possible for DBR to be counter-stopped?

A dedicated 44.1kHz Redbook audio music CD release of DBR is certainly expected for the foreseeable future.

I wouldn't be surprised if a Japanese plastic model company such as Kotobukiya or Plum picks up the exclusive rights to produce the cool playable fightercrafts depicted within the DBR mythos/universe down the road as a promotional tie-in. Perhaps rendered in 1/144th scale or as a non-scale format would work equally as well (or even as a fully assembled and professionally painted fightercraft static display diorama would be even better).

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[XoPachi]

I kind of wish the finalized enemy voices were the robotic synth ones he used in the prototype of this. Those sounded so cool and put a good spin on the enemies. Mecha invaders coming to spread the word of Christ.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Or how about DBR's fightercrafts built with Lego/Technic parts as a MOC (My Own Creation) project of sorts? Anything is possible, of course -- just gotta have the right pieces/parts or improvise with the pieces on hand to pull it off.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[XoPachi]

Oh this gallery is incredible. Bless him for just putting the ships and bosses in perfect clarity somewhere. He really captures that mid 90's Cave vibe with these machine designs and detailed visual depth. These are so nice to look at.

[guigui]

Only watched a small portion of a video of Icarus run on this. Looks definitely amazing.

Indeed many many shmups references in the bits I saw ; lets play the game of Devil Blade (__fill the blank__) feels like (__fill the blank__).

Please copy and fill the blanks when you get a good feel of it. And BIL, dont be disappoint when all blanks are filled, you'll find other snappy ASCII dirty stuff to show us.

Code: Select all

Devil Blade stage 1 feels like (__fill the blank__)
Devil Blade boss 1 feels like (__fill the blank__)
Devil Blade stage 2 feels like (Ikaruga's stage 2)
Devil Blade boss 2 feels like (Ikaruga's boss 3)
Devil Blade stage 3 feels like (__fill the blank__)
Devil Blade boss 3 feels like (__fill the blank__)
Devil Blade stage 4 feels like (__fill the blank__)
Devil Blade boss 4 feels like (__fill the blank__)
Devil Blade stage 5 feels like (__fill the blank__)
Devil Blade boss 5 feels like (__fill the blank__)
Devil Blade stage 6 feels like (__fill the blank__)
Devil Blade boss 6 feels like (__fill the blank__)

[PC Engine Fan X!]

The rumble effects when playing Devil Blade Reboot on a 1st gen Steam Deck setup, the haptic feedback is only slightly noticeable -- however, when playing with a 1st-party or 3rd-party Xbox Series X/S usb wired gamepad with rumble effects enabled with the Steam Deck in Dock mode, it really comes on strong.

Also, if you play on normal difficulty setting for the first time, whatever coins you earn on the various stages, you can spend those coins in the "Unlock Menu" section of the main menu screen. What is the "Unlock Menu" exactly?

----------
It's a shop where you can buy various items such as:

Continues (0) 20 coins to unlock each Continue option

Gallery (0 out of 49) 10 coins to unlock each Gallery picture item

Wallpaper (0 out of 10) 10 coins to unlock each Wallpaper item

Sound (Retro) (0 out of 15) 30 coins to unlock each Retro Sound item

Sound (Reboot) 0 out of 15) 80 coins to unlock each Reboot Sound item

Stage Select (0 out of 1) 100 coins to unlock Stage Select mode

Music Type (0 out of 1) 200 coins to unlock Music Type mode

Retro Mode (0 out of 1) 300 coins to unlock Retro Mode -- I'd assume this would unlock the original Devil Blade game (harkens back to the PSX Dezaemon Kids version of Devil Blade) that DBR is based on.
----------

Note: If any "Unlock Menu" items are highlighted in orange color scheme, it means that you don't have enough coins to buy the item whereas if said item is highlighted in yellow color scheme, it's buyable assuming you have enough earned coins to do so.

This particular DBR shop reminds of the shops found in other STG titles such as Forgotten Worlds, Mars Matrix for the Dreamcast and PCE/TG-16 Magical Chase in addition to Crimson Clover as well.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[guigui]

Apparently the "retro mode" is a remake of the original Devil Blade game, more frantic and shorter. Discussed on French shmup forum here, with a video of a clear (sorry, can not link to the video directly for whatever reason) :
https://forum.shmup.com/viewtopic.php?p=581672#p581672

Also, what do you do with your coins when you have bought everything in the shop ?

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Thanks guigui for that link. Checked out that youtube video of vinu's 1LCC of DBR on normal -- wow, quite an impressive 1LCC bar none!

After doing the math with DBR's shop, just to buy everything only once, it'd cost you a whopping hard-earned 1,842 coins! I'm not even sure how many playthroughs of DBR would be needed to earn the required 1,842 coins to buy the whole shop outright -- it'd certainly take a while indeed (at the very least, you'd gain some end-user experience/mastery of DBR both inside and outside in regards to the finer kind of minuteau of how it works altogether scoring-wise, game mechanics, etc).

I guess you'd keep on collecting coins "till the end of time with no end in sight" type of deal.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[XoPachi]

The pace of this game is very different even from other fast paced games in the genre to me. But I can't put a finger on what it's doing to make it feel that way. I feel like it's partially that enemy waves come in during moments you wouldn't expect them to. Like I'm noticing you don't get downtime when you've blown up a mid boss. The next wave just rushes in immediately during the explosion which is kinda cool. I feel like this isn't anywhere near the only game to do that though.

[linko9]

This game is badass. I love the basic survival vs. scoring mechanics; your survivablity isn't hindered by going for score. So far I'm basically just popping a burst at the beginning of every stage and boss, and it's very smart that the burst helps your score and survivability. Extremely easy to clear on normal, but gives you lots of room to mess around and try to point blank everything while learning the patterns. Just played for an hour so far, got 13 million I think on normal.

Only major complaints: no online leaderboards, and while the game looks awesome, every stage looks more or less the same.

edit: wait, now I see people talking about online leaderboards, how do you access that?
edit2: ok, found it in the steam community section... never seen that before, better than nothing!

[beer gas canister]

The pace of this game is very different even from other fast paced games in the genre to me. But I can't put a finger on what it's doing to make it feel that way. I feel like it's partially that enemy waves come in during moments you wouldn't expect them to. Like I'm noticing you don't get downtime when you've blown up a mid boss. The next wave just rushes in immediately during the explosion which is kinda cool. I feel like this isn't anywhere near the only game to do that though.

The enemy spawn flow reminds me of Cho Ren Sha running at high speed

[Daytime Waitress]

I haven't played the original, and I know this is a project by one dude and therefore not hamstrung by deadlines and committees and market research, but when someone tells me they've "rebooted" a game from 1996, this is what I expect to see. Not a crude HD filter and the barest semblance of extra features - this. Shit is sumptuous.

[shmuppy-puppy]

I love this game.

Attention to detail and the love for creating a unique peace of art is at the center of this beauty.
Gameplay can actually be adjusted from very beginner friendly to challenging. The music is so good that at times I was unhappy to see stages or boss fights end, because I wanted to keep on listening to the track.
As most of us here I have a collection of hundreds of shmups, but I know that this one will have a special place in my heart. It is just so well done.

[FunktionJCB]

The music is so good that at times I was unhappy to see stages or boss fights end, because I wanted to keep on listening to the track.

I was talking about the soundtrack to a friend, and mid-sentence I ended up buying it from bandcamp.

There's a lot of great tracks in there, but the one that plays in the end credits, Coin Flipping, is just pure awesomeness:
https://hasu2010.bandcamp.com/track/coin-flipping

[PC Engine Fan X!]

There was a small 24.5kb auto-downloaded patch for Devil Blade Reboot released 5-24-2024. I'm not sure what changes were adjusted/made with this patch though.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[BurlyHeart]

Having a lot of fun with my short time with it so far. Game is smoooth.

[Some-Mist]

Definitely a lot of fun. Got the normal clear today in a few tries and then got to the stage 5 boss on hard mode in one try but still haven’t gotten the clear. The scoring system is too enticing to just sit back

[BIL]

This sounds amazing.

[Arino]

EDIT: Dev responded and informed that there is a 10% score reduction when using a continue.

I think he will fix it eventually because this will result in a lot of complaints. Really makes no sense at all.

[Daytime Waitress]

This sounds amazing.

As you tear across a city engulfed in flames, the very first sub-boss declares that "God does not abide by your existence", and at that exact moment the music explodes into the refrain from Bloody Tears.

[BIL]

I sense a devilish motif! (that's devil with a big D )

[XoPachi]

This is why I like Mark a lot. Points out things I don't really consider just because we're all just so used to this kind of thing today.
On the first start up, I did read the terms and squinted like "that's kinda weird", but yeah, I just handwaved it without really thinking about the implications. It is a pretty poor move and not one I really get for this genre for a game by what I assume was all Shigatake.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NrAZtLepD4

[Daytime Waitress]

This is why I like Mark a lot. Points out things I don't really consider just because we're all just so used to this kind of thing today.
On the first start up, I did read the terms and squinted like "that's kinda weird", but yeah, I just handwaved it without really thinking about the implications. It is a pretty poor move and not one I really get for this genre for a game by what I assume was all Shigatake.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NrAZtLepD4

I'm not a huge fan of his channel, but he definitely brings up some good points.

I, too, initially handwaved it because I'm not a streamer.
And folks like jaimers have complied with the restrictions and therefore not had their channel obliterated.
And I can understand the dev's standpoints, even if I don't necessarily agree with them - they don't want the soundtest (effectively the album) up for free on teh interwebs; they don't want the story spoiled.

But ask for that from your small, niche, dedicated (captive?) fanbase, who are going to do their level best to recommend your product to people who would otherwise be indifferent to it.
Don't threaten them out of the gate.
If Ubisoft or ActiBlizz or any one of the other megacorps did this, nobody would bat an eyelid because those places have been serving up a steady diet of anti-consumer policies for the longest time.
But if you are a tiny developer that is only going to be supported by what is effectively the goodwill of hobbyists, maybe don't fuck them over before they hit the title screen?

I dunno.
I feel like I'm just reacting reflexively to the vid's "slippery slope" argumentation, but I do hope we don't look back at this in 20 years and go, "lol horse armour".

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Having viewed Mark's yt vid about copyright restriction with stg titles -- he's entitled to his opinion, just don't forcefeed/shove those personal opinions down our throats. Shigatake went on X and said it was just a "polite request" not to stream certain parts of DBR and nothing more than that (I respect that, considering that I'm just a casual stg gamer nor am I a streamer myself).

Shigatake developed DBR over six and a half years on his own free time, that's some serious dedication right there for an indie doujin stg title. It's not very often that a well crafted doujin stg title appears as with DBR in this case which should a cause for celebration.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[spmbx]

I don't think he forcefed or shoved anything, he literally says in his video its just his view and he understands and its fine if you have a different opinion on the matter.
Personally i tend to either agree with him or go for the "i dont care i dont stream and hate streamers" category
Bought the game but haven't played yet.

[qmish]

What was that video about? It's now deleted.

Anyway, I think request of not showing final stage/boss goes against culture of 1CC videos/streams which are essential to shmup community and can't be ignored.

But if it's about cutscenes, I can understand.