Super Star Shooter Classic (Steam)

[Ms. Tea]

As pointed out by Gosokkyu, the X68000 doujin shooter Super Star Shooter is out on Steam now: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3324 ... r_Classic/

This is a very Super Star Soldier-like caravan shmup with 2- and 5-minute games. Haven't played yet, but looks like it's gotten updated artwork compared to the original game. The port's by AM Factory (Nightmare in the Dark).

[PC Engine Fan X!]

The Steam port of Super Star Shooter Classic is a miniscule 713.5mb d/l and quite easy on the wallet/purse with it's cheap-ass MSRP of $1.99 usd (or a penny shy of eight quarters to be exact -- that's priced less than a cup of coffee nowadays, am I right?). Is based on the X86000 doujin stg port of the same namesake. Plays flawlessly on a Steam Deck setup without the need for a Proton loader necessary. You might recall the classic PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 stg by the name of Super Star Soldier from Interstate Kaneko and Hudson Soft with it's hidden caravan mode circa 1990, SSSC pays tribute to that particular stg title.

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Quality of life enhancements include on-line leaderboard support from the "get-go" for both 2 minute and 5 minute excursions (assuming that the Steam Deck's wi-fi functionality is enabled when booting up SSSC for the very first time) -- you'll see the latest highest scores from the usual shmuppers lurking here on the Shmups.org forum but not posting anything + fully remappable button configuration is a "positive plus in my book" and lastly, expect the usual arcade-spec and silky-smooth 60fps framerate as standard (and no less than that, folks).
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Sometime back, there was an awesome Gameboy Adavance port of Super Star Shooter Advance released as a homebrew doujin stg caravan from The Dotmap Brothers developer team that's playable on the GBA, GBA SP & GBA Micro along with the GBA Player add-on with a Gamecube console using a KriKzz GBA flashcart setup, the Everdrive Advance X5 -- both high scores and replay of your highest scoring run (shown as the default game demonstration run) are saved for posterity via NVRAM. How cool is that?

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Ms. Tea]

Yeah, now that I've played a bit, this seems very cool! Absolute steal for $2. Honestly, I'm appreciating how low-commitment a 2- or 5-minute caravan run is. Sometimes I just need something with that particular shape.

For Steam Deck users, you might want to try forcing the resolution to 1280x720. It's got a minor scaling bug where it'll crop a little off the left and right sides so it fills the screen instead of having black bars on the top and bottom. Not the end of the world but does mean you lose a bit of the score readout on the right side.

I only briefly tried the GBA version, but it's honestly pretty cute how long-lived this has been for a doujin game with so many different forms.

[qmish]

Sometime back, there was an awesome Gameboy Adavance port of Super Star Shooter Advance released as a homebrew doujin stg caravan from The Dotmap Brothers developer team

And later they released Super Star Shooter Gaiden for iOS, which quickly joined the ranks of best shmups on iPad for me. I don't think it's still available there, but I keep it on my device where I refused to update further than iOS 10 to not loose many 32-bit apps. I still didn't forgive Apple for massacre they did...

[Klatrymadon]

I only briefly tried the GBA version, but it's honestly pretty cute how long-lived this has been for a doujin game with so many different forms.

Yeah, that's what I find most endearing about it - its creators ("Tiny Tomo" and "POMP THE BASS") made the game presumably as a learning exercise in their youth, but continued to care about it enough to port it forward to the Wii* and GBA, and whoever is working on the current port clearly feels similarly.

It's a really likeable game and I hope it keeps reappearing in one form or another for decades to come.

*where I first played it, despite forgetting it existed until this week! I pulled out my old modded Wii yesterday and it was still there on the Homebrew Channel.

[Ms. Tea]

The new port is by Tiny Tomo himself! AM Factory is the name Hisanori Takeuchi (aka Tiny Tomo) uses for his pro work. Like you say, really nice to see him going back to it after all this time.

[Serge.EXE]

I'm having a very fun time with it! Having an achievement for getting top of the leaderboards is an insane idea though!

[FunktionJCB]

Had a couple of quick plays, and it really is a no-brainer at this price point.

It's a solid, fun, caravan shmup, straight from the early 90's.
What's not to like?



Side note: does anyone know how to "quit" the game?
thanks

[Ms. Tea]

I think they forgot a quit button in the menu, you have to alt+F4 or use the Steam overlay to quit.

[Klatrymadon]

That's amazing to hear, Ms. Tea. Glad they're still active!

ICYMI this has a 'mode B' with a different (brand new?) level now:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app ... 7234609227

A quit button was added to the main menu in a prior patch, too.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

An earlier released SSS Steam patch allows 1280 x 720 res support for Steam Deck users as well.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Ms. Tea]

I wonder if that new level's the one from version 2.00 of the original X68000 game? Really cool to get fresh content in this version either way! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7z88UNsCwg