M2 Toaplan collection

[Johnpv]

I believe the leaks we've gotten hint to one thing the Switch 2 is going to have over the PS4 (besides a more modern GPU architecture) is going to be a better CPU. Which could be a huge help in getting emulation running how they want it to.

[hamfighterx]

And to be clear, my musing that perhaps M2 could be delaying an announcement due to waiting for Switch 2 to be revealed does not necessarily have anything to do with tech specs.

For some of the ShotTriggers games they may want to do, hardware power (specifically CPU) might indeed be relevant. But specific to the Toaplan games, there's really no reason they should need stronger hardware - I completely agree with Sumez on that point.

However, that doesn't mean they might not still want to release the next Toaplan game on the new Nintendo hardware, and that in itself could be a legitimate reason to want to wait on announcing a game if they wanted to also announce all of the platforms simultaneously. Perhaps more for marketing reasons, and I could see it being reasonable to think they might not want to risk announcing the game before they can talk about all of the platforms - especially when a lot of the hype and media coverage these releases generate is upon their initial announcement.

[TransatlanticFoe]

I suppose "Switch 2" has to be right eventually but damn guys, those rumours have been going for years. If Evercade can emulate these games without trouble, I doubt anyone's waiting on beefier Switch hardware. Plus you have the issue that these don't sell huge numbers anyway, if you wait for new hardware that no-one has yet then you'll sell even fewer copies. They're still only putting out PS4 editions for a reason.

They're probably just busy with other stuff and it'll be like buses - wait ages and then a couple turn up at once.

[Bassa-Bassa]

And M2 is not traditionally the kind company to get aboard when a new system is just released anyway, as they know their audience. The Switch will still have life way beyond its successor's launch.

[cfx]

.

[hamfighterx]

I don't disagree that it also would not be at all surprising to see TAG Vol.4 come to PS4 and Switch only, just like the first three. That's actually what I think is most likely.

I was just brainstorming other plausible reasons for the conspicuous silence from M2 here, which is unusual given that they typically don't wait this long (basing this on what we've seen since the start of the ShotTriggers line back in 2016). It's also particularly curious since they actually showed additional Toaplan games at a major public event at TGS 2023 - with ShotTriggers branding at the displays, no less.

I do think it can be easy to overlook how well the Switch performs in Japan relative to other consoles, so the hype for its successor is uniquely high. Any publisher that happens to be releasing early games on the new machine might be interested in taking advantage of some of the substantial hype that comes with the territory, thus waiting until Nintendo actually unveils the system doesn't seem completely insane or anything. Actually a little bit similar to how Hamster made a small splash by being there at Switch launch with 6 Neo Geo games during the system's launch week (and then continuing weekly releases throughout the system's life).

Oh, and my comments were made with absolutely zero intent to imply any console war stuff, or preference between different platforms. Hell, I bought BOTH the PS4 and Switch versions for all three existing Toaplan Arcade Garage volumes. I'm totally fine with any and all platforms M2 may decide to put their games on.

[Creamy Goodness]

Does M2 have any other major releases being worked on currently? Shottriggers is basically a passion project for enthusiasts at M2. It is far from their bread and butter. Perhaps the staff are working on other things outside of shmups.

And I do not see them waiting for next gen consoles. I know they said Batrider wouldn't even be able to run on a PS4, but they should be getting out what they can. Waiting for the Switch 2 creates a ton of risk in catching the backend of the wave of popularity that shmups are riding now. They kind of need to strike when the iron is hot.

[Jonpachi]

M2 is all over the place. They even do the retro arcade games in the Yakuza series, so we can thank them for getting us Spikeout on modern consoles among so many more classics.

[BIL]

M2 is all over the place. They even do the retro arcade games in the Yakuza series, so we can thank them for getting us Spikeout on modern consoles among so many more classics.

Wait, M2 did the Model 3 games? I heard that was a mysterious lone samurai. The workings of bonafide Oriental Legends, at any rate.

[Jonpachi]

M2 is all over the place. They even do the retro arcade games in the Yakuza series, so we can thank them for getting us Spikeout on modern consoles among so many more classics.

Wait, M2 did the Model 3 games? I heard that was a mysterious lone samurai. The workings of bonafide Oriental Legends, at any rate.

You made me double-check, and perhaps I'm wrong on Spikeout. They did the retro games in Lost Judgement, which had VF5: Final Showdown. I thought they were attached to all the Yakuza titles, but perhaps not the two latest ones.

[Arino]

They're already performing miracles to get PGM games running like they do.

The PGM games run very poorly plus they were not ported by M2?

They're probably just busy with other stuff and it'll be like buses - wait ages and then a couple turn up at once.

Correct. Source: https://www.timeextension.com/news/2024 ... the-scenes

"M2 Currently Working On 'Several Projects Behind The Scenes', 'Please wait a little longer'"

[cfx]

.

[beer gas canister]

They're already performing miracles to get PGM games running like they do.

The PGM games run very poorly plus they were not ported by M2?

DoJ runs on a PGM board. I'd thought Esprade did too but I had misremembered, it's a Cave 68k

[Arino]

They're already performing miracles to get PGM games running like they do.

The PGM games run very poorly plus they were not ported by M2?

DoJ runs on a PGM board. I'd thought Esprade did too but I had misremembered, it's a Cave 68k

Oh sorry I thought you meant the IGS PGM games lol.

[Sumez]

They did Ketsui "recently" too.
Is PGM emulation really that tricky tho?

[Arino]

Is PGM emulation really that tricky tho?

MAME says no.

[Sumez]

MAME took a long while to support PGM, but I'd rather attribute that to a lack of interest by developers, and/or the mame project's own unwillingless to add support for games that were still "too new" at the time.

[MJR]

I find some of the speculative comments of M2 wanting to skip rest of the shottriggers for Switch 2 "for better processing power" slightly ludicrous.

Switch is perfectly capable of emulating all of Toaplan's catalogue, and it has a vast user base that is not going to disappear just overnight. Even if they released something on Switch 2, I am willing to bet my broken pair of socks that all of the intended shot triggers WILL appear on Switch and PS4 too.

Generally any talk of modern hardware not being able to emulate 2D games is baffling. I used to play Armed Police batrider on Mame almost 24 years ago, and it ran just fine to my uneducated eye. Now all suddenly this talk of modern generation of consoles not being to able emulate old games..

[Bassa-Bassa]

You're missing that M2 seems to use runahead-like techniques to minimize input lag since they care about that, unlike other approaches. That requires CPU power. Coupled with the lower and lower sales of PS4 soft and the PS5 not getting at it, I see M2 jumping in the Switch 2 wagon sooner than they use to, but indeed way too far for now to be currently a factor.


PGM is reportedly a devil when it comes to protection. It's still unfinished in Mame. Though that goes for the actual PGM system, I'm not sure how similar in that regard are the PGM-based Cave PCBs.

[MJR]

You're missing that M2 seems to use runahead-like techniques to minimize input lag since they care about that, unlike other approaches. That requires CPU power. Coupled with the lower and lower sales of PS4 soft and the PS5 not getting at it, I see M2 jumping in the Switch 2 wagon sooner than they use to, but indeed way too far for now to be currently a factor.


PGM is reportedly a devil when it comes to protection. It's still unfinished in Mame. Though that goes for the actual PGM system, I'm not sure how similar in that regard are the PGM-based Cave PCBs.

I know full well that M2 is doing all kinds of extra stuff that other developers are not; that's why I also put lot of interest in this thread.
Unless you are able to give me some specific reasoning - which is impossible, since M2 does not share their source code - I just can't buy the notion that minimizing input lag on emulation is going to put modern console in it's knees - so much so that they would be ready to move on to next generation.

I have never coded emulation myself, though I've been in game development for 30 years. But I do know that technical wizardry does not mean making code that will put every modern machine to it's knees. It's the opposite.

For PGM I can't say much.

[Bassa-Bassa]

You just need to check how demanding becomes emulation of the most elementary arcade hardware when you apply runahead or frame delay in Windows emulators. It's night and day and ARM-based devices are usually not enough to use these features at full. And while we don't have M2's source codes, they've given us enough hints to think they're using something of that ilk, starting with the Switch versions of their games being always at least 1 frame laggier than the PS4 ones.

[Steven]

This doesn't really go here, but the Snow Bros 2 Special Steam page is up now.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2340 ... 2_SPECIAL/

Looks like they decided not to make it 16:9 this time.

No sign of the horrifying character select screen from the original overseas version... not sure if I am happy or sad about that, but...

[evil_ash_xero]

I still can't believe they haven't done Batsugun.
With the good working relationship that they have with Jun, we could get
all kinds of new artwork and whatnot.
Perhaps even a new mode with new Jun characters.

[Arino]

This doesn't really go here, but the Snow Bros 2 Special Steam page is up now.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2340 ... 2_SPECIAL/

Looks like they decided not to make it 16:9 this time.

No sign of the horrifying character select screen from the original overseas version... not sure if I am happy or sad about that, but...

Btw why don't you like Batsugun? I remember you saying it was their worst game or something.

[Steven]

This doesn't really go here, but the Snow Bros 2 Special Steam page is up now.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2340 ... 2_SPECIAL/

Looks like they decided not to make it 16:9 this time.

No sign of the horrifying character select screen from the original overseas version... not sure if I am happy or sad about that, but...

Btw why don't you like Batsugun? I remember you saying it was their worst game or something.

I've mentioned it before, but

I don't like bullet hell much at all

respawns instead of checkpoints, so you can no-skill bomb spam your way through the game

tiny-ass hurtbox that makes it very hard to tell where you take damage (one of the main reasons that I don't like bullet hell)

enemy placement is significantly weaker and less interesting than most previous Toaplan games

music is worse than most previous Toaplan games

graphics are marginally worse than most previous Toaplan games, especially the 90s games (Batsugun has the same problem as SFC Dracula, where they tried to cram too much detail in but there isn't enough resolution to support it, so it ends up looking messy, particularly the backgrounds)

severe pacing issues because the game rushes you through the first 3 stages in like 45 seconds each, followed by an agonizingly long stage 4, which is longer than the entire first 3 stages combined and a boss that ALSO feels like it takes longer than the first 3 stages combined, followed by a slightly shorter stage 5, leaving the game feeling very lopsided and uneven

this is basically impossible to qualify, but it doesn't feel like a Toaplan shooting game at all. Yuge-san said the same thing in the book that came with the awful City Connection version, so it's not just me and someone who actually worked there on almost every Toaplan shooter agrees

It's absolutely on the weak side for Toaplan STGs without question, but I do like it (and every Toaplan game) and it's definitely not their worst game. That's Knuckle Bash. I'd rather play Batsugun than any CAVE game or pretty much any other bullet hell, too.

[Arino]

This doesn't really go here, but the Snow Bros 2 Special Steam page is up now.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2340 ... 2_SPECIAL/

Looks like they decided not to make it 16:9 this time.

No sign of the horrifying character select screen from the original overseas version... not sure if I am happy or sad about that, but...

Btw why don't you like Batsugun? I remember you saying it was their worst game or something.

I've mentioned it before

Oh, I'm sorry I can't remember every post of this forum

This doesn't really go here, but the Snow Bros 2 Special Steam page is up now.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2340 ... 2_SPECIAL/

Looks like they decided not to make it 16:9 this time.

No sign of the horrifying character select screen from the original overseas version... not sure if I am happy or sad about that, but...

Btw why don't you like Batsugun? I remember you saying it was their worst game or something.

I've mentioned it before, but

I don't like bullet hell much at all

respawns instead of checkpoints

tiny-ass hurtbox that makes it very hard to tell where you take damage (one of the main reasons that I don't like bullet hell)

enemy placement is significantly weaker and less interesting than most previous Toaplan games

music is worse than most previous Toaplan games

graphics are marginally worse than most previous Toaplan games, especially the 90s games (Batsugun has the same problem as SFC Dracula, where they tried to cram too much detail in but there isn't enough resolution to support it, so it ends up looking messy, particularly the backgrounds)

severe pacing issues because the game rushes you through the first 3 stages in like 45 seconds each, followed by an agonizingly long stage 4, which is longer than the entire first 3 stages combined and a boss that ALSO feels like it takes longer than the first 3 stages combined, followed by a slightly shorter stage 5, leaving the game feeling very lopsided and uneven

this is basically impossible to qualify, but it doesn't feel like a Toaplan shooting game at all. Yuge-san said the same thing in the book that came with the awful City Connection version, so it's not just me and someone who actually worked there on almost every Toaplan shooter agrees

It's absolutely on the weak side for Toaplan STGs without question, but I do like it (and every Toaplan game) and it's definitely not their worst game. That's Knuckle Bash. I'd rather play Batsugun than any CAVE game or pretty much any other bullet hell, too.

Actually I have to agree with everything you said (apart from the graphics, I don't think it looks messy because of what you said), very understandable point of view, but I still find it fun to play I also like Knuckle Bash, I hope it will come soon as the third game of their next Toaplan release.

Actually this is interesting, I wonder what the third game of each upcoming release will be. I was very happy to get Wardner and Horror Story. I think another two will (hopefully) be Knuckle Bash and Ghox. Would have to look up their games to think of others.

[Steven]

Knuckle Bash is fun and I like it. It's... definitely not great, but it's just a silly game and that makes it cool, and it has some really awesome music too.

Honestly, I'd take Batsugun over Mahjong Sisters (can't play mahjong anyway), Snow Bros, Snow Bros 2 (sorry Bros fans), Ghox (second half of the game... yeah, it sucks miserably), FixEight, and depending on the day you ask me, possibly Tatsujin, Zero Wing, and Daisenpuu. I have really mixed feelings about Zero Wing. Sometimes I'm like HELL YEAH I LOVE ZERO WING!!!!!!!!!!!! and then sometimes I'm like yeah no let's play basically anything that isn't Zero Wing or bullet hell. Daisenpuu is secretly pretty cool, but I have to be in the right mood to play it.

In terms of graphics, Batsugun definitely gets completely destroyed by Out Zone, Tatsujin Ou, and Dogyuun!! for sure. Those three games' graphics are completely out of control and still look way, WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY better than pretty much every modern 2D pixel art game, even 30+ years later. Batsugun has a few backgrounds that I don't like (mostly stage 2, which looks a bit odd to me), but it's mostly okay, but not as good as what came before just a few years earlier.

[Arino]

I can't play Mahjong either, it has been kind of in among STG players on Twitch I noticed, but if you ask Asians they just see it as a boring game for old people I think

Just checked and actually I want all of their games

[Sumez]

Steven just hates Batsugun because it's popular.

It's not a bullet hell game lol

[MJR]

Steven just hates Batsugun because it's popular.

It's not a bullet hell game lol

It has more bullets than 80's Toaplan games. Steven seems to be very old school in taste, that's fine!
I like bullet hell games, but I like 80's classic Toaplan these days more.