LiveWire ports SaiDaiOuJou to the Switch (all regions)

[HRX]

Were the previous Live Wire titles simultaneous release?

[To Far Away Times]

I do love that Live Wire is giving new life to the CAVE Xbox 360 ports, but are we really skipping Futari… again?

[Steven]

See, this is one of the major problems with consoles. If they put stuff on PC instead, nobody would be complaining about their favourite games being trapped eternally on ancient hardware. All of my Windows games from the 90s work flawlessly on my modern PC, and they run natively, so I don't have to worry about weird emulation problems or anything like that. Meanwhile, the only CAVE game that works on newer Xboxes is Guwange, and if you want anything else you're just screwed if you don't have a 360.

I don't even need to ask what happens when you try to play Famicom, SFC, N64, Gamecube, Wii, Wii U, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, DS, DSi, 3DS, or the handful of New 3DS games on Switch because the answer is "nothing, because those games don't work on Switch because it isn't backwards compatible".

Hopefully they can at least manage to fix at least some of the various problems with the 360 version with this release. My 360 recently decided to kill my Saidaioujou save file for some reason, so if I want to use Type-D again, I have to start unlocking it from nothing. Just make it available from the start this time, please...

I'm not buying this on launch, though; I'll wait to see how it turns out first.

[BrianC]

See, this is one of the major problems with consoles. If they put stuff on PC instead, nobody would be complaining about their favourite games being trapped eternally on ancient hardware. All of my Windows games from the 90s work flawlessly on my modern PC, and they run natively, so I don't have to worry about weird emulation problems or anything like that. Meanwhile, the only CAVE game that works on newer Xboxes is Guwange, and if you want anything else you're just screwed if you don't have a 360.

Really? No problems with early Windows 3.1 games or 16 bit Windows games that are no longer compatible with 64 bit Windows? Not to mention compatibility issues with some video cards and some versions of Windows.

[Steven]

Like I said, I have literally no games that don't work flawlessly on my modern PC. Maybe there is old shit that I don't know about because I'm not old enough that doesn't work, but everything that I have is perfect. As for video cards... lol just don't use AMD. Not saying there aren't incompatible games or whatever since stuff becomes unplayable due to DRM or other issues, but the overwhelming majority of PC games work perfectly fine.

Now, tell me about the backwards compatibility that PS4 and PS5 have with PS3 games and earlier~ Oh wait, that's right, it doesn't exist at all.

[BrianC]

I can think of plenty of games that either don't work properly or I had to jump through hoops to get them working. Not to mention games that used 8-bit color. Even some that appeared to be flawless often had graphical or crashing issues. Some touhou games needed a patch to work properly with newer versions of Direct X. Megaman X4 had issues with the video codec and the installer being 16 bit. Isn't Xbox's BC emulation based? Some of the games on older systems have been emulated or ported to Switch. Switch has plenty of WiiU ports and some emulated older games available (though sadly many need a subscription).

[Sima Tuna]

Morrowind on GoG doesn't output in 16:9 (modern displays) unless you install mods and I couldn't get it to display in letterboxed 4:3 either.

Lots of PC games like Nox just don't boot up on my computer at all. Then there are games like Allied General where I've heard horror stories of how you have to archive a state of a particular operating system that it used to run on, because the game is too "new" for old software emulators like Dosbox but too old to run on modern systems.

There are not many games I've purchased on GoG that didn't work (GoG releases usually come patched so they will boot up on modern systems,) but I have had some.

[Ms. Tea]

Were the previous Live Wire titles simultaneous release?

Yep, all of them were simultaneous.

[TransatlanticFoe]

Yeah I can't recommend PC gaming above console gaming for backward compatibility - plenty of games need a community effort to make them playable, though at least modern storefront support is generally better now. Just as easy to keep (or repair/replace) your old consoles around or re-purchase the occasional re-release that you REALLY want to spend time with. You need to be upgrading parts more frequently to stay current than you do with console generations too, that plus occasional driver shenanigans caused me to walk away from PC. I wonder if things will change a bit in future though, because a lot of the justification for re-buying games on a modern platform is previously they were region locked or fragmented with DLC - after this gen, re-releases might seem less appealing.

Great news SDOJ is getting a port though, even if it's just a quickie of the 360 version. Hoping they announce a physical release, presumably once the eshop version has had time to find any serious bugs, and bodes well for the remaining titles to get a re-release!

[Sima Tuna]

To be fair, if you use PC for emulation of arcade games then it probably IS more stable overall than keeping a stack of old retro consoles in working order. Thanks to, y'know, MAME and RetroArch and shit.

But as for the PC games themselves (games developed for PCs,) we frequently lose access to them (temporarily or permanently, depending on the mod/community patch scene) as technology advances.

[bobrocks95]

Looking forward to the boxed release to sit next to Mushi, DFK, and Espgaluda II

[Steven]

Yeah I can't recommend PC gaming above console gaming for backward compatibility - plenty of games need a community effort to make them playable

But once you do that they do work. Go stick a PS1, PS2, or PS3 game in a PS4 or PS5 and let me know what happens. For that matter, stick a PS2 game in a later PS3 and let me know what happens. Or a Mega Drive game in a Saturn, a Saturn game in a Dreamcast, a PC Engine game in a PC-FX, or any non-Switch Nintendo game into a Switch.

[MJR]

Yeah I can't recommend PC gaming above console gaming for backward compatibility - plenty of games need a community effort to make them playable

But once you do that they do work. Go stick a PS1, PS2, or PS3 game in a PS4 or PS5 and let me know what happens. For that matter, stick a PS2 game in a later PS3 and let me know what happens. Or a Mega Drive game in a Saturn, a Saturn game in a Dreamcast, a PC Engine game in a PC-FX, or any non-Switch Nintendo game into a Switch.

That kinda depends what kind of hobbyist you are and what resources you have - are you short on time/money/or room?
Yes, they do work after some effort, but it often happens that once I got them to work I am no longer in a mood to play.

I am short on time so if I want to play PS1 game, I fire up my PS1 thats hooked to my CRT tv and so on. Zero headache. I have pretty much every console I ever bought (except megadrive/genesis and snes, but those have pretty good minis), and some of them have everdrives which makes life really easy. They do take some space so I understand it's not a choice for everyone.

[TransatlanticFoe]

Yeah I can't recommend PC gaming above console gaming for backward compatibility - plenty of games need a community effort to make them playable

But once you do that they do work. Go stick a PS1, PS2, or PS3 game in a PS4 or PS5 and let me know what happens. For that matter, stick a PS2 game in a later PS3 and let me know what happens. Or a Mega Drive game in a Saturn, a Saturn game in a Dreamcast, a PC Engine game in a PC-FX, or any non-Switch Nintendo game into a Switch.

Until the next OS update or driver conflict or whatever and you need someone to fix it for you. It comes down to what you want to have to deal with - you connect the right console and away you go or you have your one device to rule them all but it might take a bit of work to get the game to install and run.

[Steven]

Can you really depend on console hardware? In 30 years, will it still work? That is my point. I don't trust it. It's uncertain, whereas PC gives you the best experience to begin with because of its superior hardware, customization options, and input devices (which includes all modern console controllers), will be easy to construct and repair, will retain larger compatibility for the foreseeable future, the ability to go learn how to fix broken software and do it yourself if needed or desired or to just use the fixes that someone else has made, and will remain relevant forever. Consoles have none of these things and never will.

To be clear, old consoles are good and cool; they have unique hardware and unique games that take advantage of that hardware to do things that they couldn't do on any other system. Modern consoles are the shit ones. What unique hardware features do the PS4, PS5, or Xbox have that PC can't do? Or even the 360? Nothing, except convenient BD players in the case of the three former ones, and even then you can just dump your BDs using your PC.

[MJR]

Can you really depend on console hardware? In 30 years, will it still work? That is my point. I don't trust it. It's uncertain, whereas PC gives you the best experience to begin with because of its superior hardware, customization options, and input devices (which includes all modern console controllers), will be easy to construct and repair, will retain larger compatibility for the foreseeable future, the ability to go learn how to fix broken software and do it yourself if needed or desired or to just use the fixes that someone else has made, and will remain relevant forever. Consoles have none of these things and never will.

To be clear, old consoles are good and cool; they have unique hardware and unique games that take advantage of that hardware to do things that they couldn't do on any other system. Modern consoles are the shit ones. What unique hardware features do the PS4, PS5, or Xbox have that PC can't do? Or even the 360? Nothing, except convenient BD players in the case of the three former ones, and even then you can just dump your BDs using your PC.

Well, to put in context; I have Commodore 64 + 1541 disk drive + datassette and that was made in 1983 or so. It still works. I think it would be weird if later consoles would get broken to a point I could not use them, faster than my old C64 does. Laser from cd-roms players can die out, that's true. You can replace them or use everdrive. But yes you need to sometimes do maintenance. My old jamma cabinet and PCB boards are then ones that needed the maintenance the most. That kinda comes naturally with the territory when you are into retro gaming.

PC is anything but reliable, that's mostly thanks to Microsoft rather than the hardware. When I am eventually forced to migrate to Windows 11, I can only guess what kind of issues all the older games and emulators are going to get.

Other thing I hate with Mame and emulators are also the endless rom revisions, just maintaining all the romset changes is a pain and CLRmame is obscure to use at best. Maintaining just one emulator with its zillion settings is a pain, and I can only imagine the trouble I would have to go through to emulate PS3 or PS4 on PC. No thanks.

For full disclosure, I started embarking on console emulation by buying license to MagicEngine on nineties, which I still have. But it took backseat once I bought the real thing. First time I tried Mame was in 1997. But it's nowhere near as enjoyable as playing with the real thing. For every possible game, I would always prefer to play them with the original hardware and controllers, if I am going to be any serious about it.

If someone prefers using PC, that's fine. It's much cheaper and takes less space and if you got the time, you can indeed make everything work. But for me, personally, the magic just isn't there.

[Steven]

PC is anything but reliable, that's mostly thanks to Microsoft rather than the hardware. When I am eventually forced to migrate to Windows 11, I can only guess what kind of issues all the older games and emulators are going to get.

Believe me, I can't wait until Linux doesn't have terrible compatibility with games. I HATE Microsoft and always have; I started on Mac, and my dislike of Microsoft is about 90% of why I never got into Xbox. I'm probably going to switch completely to Linux eventually. Unfortunately, Linux sucks miserably at playing Windows games, but the Steam Deck has started to cause that to change. Linux has some weirdness going on, but having used it for one year and 11 days now, I do like it, especially how it isn't filled with Microshit's pointless spyware and bloatware, so Linux runs super fast and very efficiently.

[Bassa-Bassa]

First time I tried Mame was in 1997. But it's nowhere near as enjoyable as playing with the real thing.

That's a lot of time to still not know about Groovymame and its wonders, I'd say.

[shmuppy-puppy]

PC is anything but reliable, that's mostly thanks to Microsoft rather than the hardware. When I am eventually forced to migrate to Windows 11, I can only guess what kind of issues all the older games and emulators are going to get.

Believe me, I can't wait until Linux doesn't have terrible compatibility with games. I HATE Microsoft and always have; I started on Mac, and my dislike of Microsoft is about 90% of why I never got into Xbox. I'm probably going to switch completely to Linux eventually. Unfortunately, Linux sucks miserably at playing Windows games, but the Steam Deck has started to cause that to change. Linux has some weirdness going on, but having used it for one year and 11 days now, I do like it, especially how it isn't filled with Microshit's pointless spyware and bloatware, so Linux runs super fast and very efficiently.

[DenimDemon]

They gotta free Guwange before Futari.

[Steven]

Guwange is safe for now on Xbox Series.

Spoiler

which nobody in Japan has ever seen in a brick and mortar store lol

[spmbx]

Guwange is safe for now on Xbox Series.

Spoiler

which nobody in Japan has ever seen in a brick and mortar store lol

tbf our toystores (at least in my country in europe) also don't carry xbox hardware, only the bigger electronics stores have them on shelves.
Back in the DC days the only place i could actually buy a console locally was at a store that sold imported dvd's and other non-standard stuff, none of the toystores where the average mom and dad would shop carried the dreamcast.

Brick&mortar is switch and ps5 domain.

[MJR]

First time I tried Mame was in 1997. But it's nowhere near as enjoyable as playing with the real thing.

That's a lot of time to still not know about Groovymame and its wonders, I'd say.

I know full well of groovymame, and shmupmame and numerous other variants. I think it should be quite obvious that if I don't have the time and patience to tinker with mame, it's countless revisions and settings, I have even less time and patience to tinker with Mame variants. I also raised the point of there being different levels of hobbyists based on different kinds of resources, be it time, or money, or space. And I said the time is what I don't have.

[Bassa-Bassa]

The act of playing, which was your point there, is as enjoyable as with the real thing for a lot of games, if not better. As for the rest, I'm saying nothing, but the "tinkering" aspect of Groovymame is basically the same as with the official Mame if not simpler since it's mostly automated, as anybody that knows it full well will say.

[Marc]

What unique hardware features do the PS4, PS5, or Xbox have that PC can't do? Or even the 360? Nothing, except convenient BD players in the case of the three former ones, and even then you can just dump your BDs using your PC.

I turn them on, and they just work, simple.

[Johnpv]

Seems like there was no announcement for this in the west. Guess its import time again.

[pablumatic]

Seems like there was no announcement for this in the west. Guess its import time again.

Yeah. I don't think we're going to get it. There's too much Japanese text that they don't want to translate. Gonna have to buy from JP eshop.

[Sima Tuna]

Is it really so hard to translate japanese text in a fucking shmup???

[shmuppy-puppy]

They don’t port to Steam anymore because the hardware does not get outdated.
It’s pure gold to be able to sell the same game again and again to the next console generation. Especially if you have a following like Cave and your company has quit the arcade business for decades.

[marus]

Is it really so hard to translate japanese text in a fucking shmup???

Well there's also the Xbox 360 mode where your two waifus yell at you for 30 minutes nonstop while you sit on the couch and try to ignore them so you can play your damn video game. I wouldn't want to translate that either.