Strania: The Stella Machina EX coming to Switch

[m.sniffles.esq]

WHY DO I HAVE THREE SWORDS? AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH

They would actually give you an achievement for doing this on the xbox version. Which made me laugh.

It's a pretty game and I'm shit at it but I don't hate it. I don't know why

I concur it is very pretty (and slick, and flashy), and while I don't hate it either (obviously, or I wouldn't have bought it twice) I will say it's as pretty as it's over-designed.

[RedCadre]

Isnt this still available on Xbox Series X or Xbox One? I have it in my library.

On another note isnt that the same publisher thats suppose to be releasing the Under Defeat HD Remaster for PS4 and PC. It was supposed to release back in December like it did in Japan. A bit prior to the release the publisher stated the worldwide or english release wouldnt come out until 2025 with no additional information.

Curious if any new information is available regarding this.

[sunnshiner]

I concur it is very pretty (and slick, and flashy), and while I don't hate it either (obviously, or I wouldn't have bought it twice) I will say it's as pretty as it's over-designed.

Yeah, I bought it on 360 and PC too (after I sold my 360). Glutton for punishment I suppose!

[Ms. Tea]

The 360 version of the original game is still available on Xbox, yes. This is a new revised version, with adjustments to the difficulty, a new hard mode, and an arranged soundtrack.

Yeah, this is a different publisher. G.rev handled this port themselves, while Under Defeat and Mamorukun Curse are being handled by TakexOff, the same studio that ported Akai Katana. Under Defeat's international release date has been announced, btw - it comes out February 6.

[EmperorIng]

Apparently some Japanese players have tabulated that the balance for the new port in regards to the difficulty is not to change boss health or bullets, but just make your weapons do appx 10x more damage and have some weapons fire more bullets, faster.

Uh, that's one way to do it.
Kinda makes the lower difficulties feel too trivial now. Bosses on Normal die before doing anything.

[RedCadre]

Ok finally its releasing! thats good....never played it.

[dai jou bu]

I concur it is very pretty (and slick, and flashy), and while I don't hate it either (obviously, or I wouldn't have bought it twice) I will say it's as pretty as it's over-designed.

G.Rev/treasure have a level of craftsmanship that only cave can compete in consistently, hence why those who despise the former’s game systems get all grumpy because they like how the game’s presentation is world-class and there are very few developers in the market today that can even come close to it.

Except for yurukill . Seems like G.Rev only goes all out on games they make themselves and I don’t blame them. the shmup sections have doujin-level vibes in that game.

[EmperorIng]

Been spending more time with this after knocking out a 1cc in Normal in a short amount of time. Switched to Hard, where the game has more meat on its bones. Game started kicking my ass in stage 4, just like the steam port did. I hope to make my way to Expert afterwards.

The port feels very good. Controls feel responsive and snappy and I have to imagine G.Rev made sure this plays well on me Soytendo Switch.

I think my only gripes so far:
-would have been nice to have a pre-exa damage option, but it's not such a big deal
-no replays! I wish I could see some top scores (should they actually arrive )
-this one is the biggest: this would have been the perfect opportunity to add some type of gadget or HUD element off to the side that lets me see how powered up my weapons are, so it can be a little easier to route my weapon usage and pickups. I suppose that's part of the 'difficulty' of the game but it can be hard juggling the ranks of 9 weapons in your head even if you generally start developing a route after a while.

But this is a great way to play the game. The graphics are nice and smooth with a little bit of HD paint, and the arrange soundtrack is godly. Well worth it!

[m.sniffles.esq]

As I was playing (fumbling) with this on the bus this morning, it occurred to me that one of the big criticisms people had about Border Down on it's release was that it was more a company demo reel, than a game unto itself.

If that's true, and Border Down was just intended as a commercial for g.rev's services, then Strania is the "Look at my shit" monologue from Spring Breakers

[BIL]

If that's true, and Border Down was just intended as a commercial for g.rev's services

Nah, it was the opposite. They busted their asses with contract work to get their original STG done, having left Taito after it withdrew from arcades.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/olliebarde ... ot-em-ups/

Maruyama: “When I was at Taito I really enjoyed it. We had a great development team, as well as great development environment there, and we were all making arcade games. However, one day they announced that they weren't doing arcade games anymore. They were pulling out.

“My original mission at Taito was to revive arcades games, so when my boss told me we were pulling out from arcades games that's when I decided to leave. To clarify, I was a programmer at Taito and I worked on games like G-Darius. So when I left, part of that game's team came with me. The whole point was that we wanted to make the kind of games we cared about, so if we couldn't make arcade games at Taito anymore then we would do it ourselves.

“So there were four of us to begin with, all programmers. We had all worked on G-Darius and on another project after that, so it meant we all knew how each other worked and thought. In that sense, it was an easy decision for us to all leave at once. The remaining guy who had worked on the Ray series, he had already left Taito at the time, so there was no real issue in inviting him to join G.rev.”

Scans from Retro Gamer # 53 / The Making Of Border Down:

Spoiler

Maruyama's expressed his pride in BD many times over the years. I recall another particular quote where he said that as long as they got BD into arcades, he'd have considered G.Rev a success. I'll see if I can dig it up. But yeah, this was an archetypal passion project.

https://shmuplations.com/senkonoronde/

—Of the different STG titles you’ve worked on, do you have any particular favorites?

Maruyama: It’s difficult for me to say “favorite” in this way, but in the sense that it left a lasting impression on me, I would say Border Down. There was the motivation of it being our first STG at G.Rev, and I had to overcome many practical hurdles related to budget and company administration. I have a lot of pride, even now, that we were able to complete that game. Although it’s true that when I look back at Border Down now, I see lots of things I’d like to fix. (laughs)

https://web.archive.org/web/20120617030 ... -interview (hope you're doing ok out there Pyongyang ;w;7)

—What are your top 3 shooting games of all time?

“I’ve been asked this question many times and one of my favorite games is Metal Black from Taito which is also the reason why I wanted to become a game developer. Until Metal Black I was never interested in creating games and just interested in playing them. Actually, my dream was to become a camera man. The game I spent the most time with was Xevious from Namco. Yes, there is no game I played more than that. The last one would be Fantasy Zone from Sega which I really loved when I was a kid. I used to ride my bike for 20 minutes to a nearby department store, which had a Fantasy Zone cabinet on the top floor. I really enjoyed that game.

That makes my three favorite games: one as a creator, one that I spent the most time with and one I enjoyed the most”.

[EmperorIng]

it occurred to me that one of the big criticisms people had about Border Down on it's release was that it was more a company demo reel, than a game unto itself

It is reassuring to know that such people, if they existed, are as stupid and clueless then as they are now!

[m.sniffles.esq]

It is reassuring to know that such people, if they existed, are as stupid and clueless then as they are now!

Oh, people were much more stupid back then
I mean, perhaps I've been looking in the wrong places, but I feel like I haven't seen "this game scrolls horizontally, so it sucks" in at least 10 years

[DenimDemon]

Grev posted on twitter that an update was release to fix some issue and up rise the 2D ui.

https://x.com/grevUST/status/1885246453255463274

[EmperorIng]

I am taking a lot of hits in stages 3 and 4 which means i have not gotten past stage 5 on Hard mode... Granted it's been a few years since I played the steam version but man, it's really easy to take hits with how chaotic the stages are + avoiding weapon powerups. Especially when you OD from fentanyl and are zooming around the screen like a madman racking up multipliers.

Taking this from elsewhere, but since the main fun of the game (for me) is to route a Dan-rank on every weapon - which is what you are encouraged to do - this is my strategy that I've been sticking to:

St1: pick up everything, but end the stage with Reflect, Rocket, and Vulcan
St2: Start with Missile and Direction, end with Laser and Sword (third doesn't matter, usually rocket)
St3: Side, Missile, and Rocket
St4: Use Side, Missile and Vulcan at the start (this usually maxes Missile, and using the Fentanyl mode on the line of laser ships maxes out Vulcan and Side most of the time) - then usually pick up bomb and rocket in the maze, and use those to activate another fent rush to get some free bomb levels. End with Sword and Rocket.
St5: Bomb is essential, and probably direction at this point. You have to start thinking about which weapons you haven't Dan ranked yet. Maybe Reflect too. Sword -might- be worth it, but you will have your chance on the next stage.
St6: whatever hasn't been Dan-ranked yet

EDIT: now I've gotten to the final boss, and the mech spam right before the final boss (which is surprisingly hard to survive, since I am getting there with sub-optimal weapons).

[To Far Away Times]

As I was playing (fumbling) with this on the bus this morning, it occurred to me that one of the big criticisms people had about Border Down on it's release was that it was more a company demo reel, than a game unto itself.

If that's true, and Border Down was just intended as a commercial for g.rev's services, then Strania is the "Look at my shit" monologue from Spring Breakers

I have always really wanted to like G Rev's games. They look and sound great, they're flashy, they can be a lot of fun. But they always have some stupid design element. If Border Down had a Darius style branching paths system, or even just three separate routes, and didn't have it's stupid rank and suicide system, it would be great game. Just take out the quirky border aspects and make it a normal game. Perhaps no other game in the entire genre could benefit more from a "Black Label" version than this one. Strania's a bit closer to hitting the mark; I don't think the production values are quite as good as Border Down, but the downsides aren't as bad either. But the one thing that drags Strania down is that the weapon system is so finicky, and it gets in the way of the fun.

[M.Knight]

They look and sound great, they're flashy, they can be a lot of fun. But they always have some stupid design element.

Yes! Thousand times this. It's kinda baffling why some of those gimmicky design decisions are there, and I didn't think it's often mentionned so thank you haha. Strania is likely one of the biggest offenders though Kokuga's touchscreen and random cards are probably up there too. UD has some stuff that feels unecessary but they don't hinder the game much at least.

That said, I wanna say the Border system seems like an actually interesting and fully fleshed out take on checkpoints. I haven't explored the game much yet to be honest so that system admittedly kicks my ass. It is definitely not newcomer-friendly. But when you are comfortable with all the stages and routes, I am fairly certain the border mechanics open up a lot of interesting routing decisions in regards to the path you wanna pick and the SD timings for optimal scoring. It also alleviates the problem of classic shmup checkpoint milk where you literally do the same thing over and over again by changing what you are facing and limiting how many times you can die in the same place. And even for survival, the norma system for recovery pushes you to use the scoring mechanics to border up so that sounds good.

Compare that to the Strania system that adds nothing on its own and could be replaced by Chaos Field/RSG-like controls and I feel there's a clear difference in how well integrated the systems are.

[m.sniffles.esq]

I know the memorization headz hated the border thing for obvious reasons. I thought it was clever.

And I suppose Strania's weapon system is supposed to add a similar element of chaos, but I can't say I would call it 'clever'. 'Finicky'--as stated above--would perhaps be a kind term that I guess applies. 'Fucking annoying' being a less kind way of putting it.

[dai jou bu]

Seemed like I was the only person who was against the inane game mechanics of border down as well when it came out. Artificially prolonging the boss fight and intentionally suiciding at certain points to maximize score? Doesn’t that go against the fantasy of a military organization testing experimental spacecraft trying to be as efficient as possible with their tools?

“Yeah, let’s just intentionally crash this bajillion-dollar prototype spacecraft right here so we can increase some arbitrary number so that our pilot can get off on seeing that to go up!”

“Prolonging our confrontation with the highest threat target in the battle zone because our commander wants to see some number not tied to any metric that matters to combat performance while increasing the amount of collateral damage that occurs and endangering non-combatants still in the area for making the fight last longer? ALL SYSTEMS GO!”

Under defeat seems to be the only sane shmup G.Rev’s designed, which is why it’s the only one I like from them outside of Senko no ronde and it’s also why it’s their most ported shmup in their catalogue.

I’m on the same notion that if border down had a scoring system that wasn’t retarded since you were incentivized to hit the target score for the stage in order to “border up” for the next one, it would’ve been up there on the pantheon with the other greats in the genre. This is the real reason why border down isn’t on another home system besides the Dreamcast because its scoring system is that stupid.

Probably should really grok strania on my Xbox to see how bad g.rev screwed up its scoring game mechanics.

[Ms. Tea]

Ended up grabbing this and playing a bit and you know what, I'm into it! I'm sure if I were really seriously going for scoring I'd get frustrated, but I'm enjoying it as kind of goofy chaos. Need to put more time into it.

I didn't realize the arrange soundtrack is the arrange CD from 2017 - for some reason I thought this was a new arrange for the arcade game. Guess that explains why they were able to use it for the home version.

[EmperorIng]

Scoring in Strania is quite nice because what it does is encourage you to use all your weapons - the more kills you get with the weapons, the more you score. No leveling up stuff like with Radiant Silvergun, so it's strictly to help you get extends and you definitely need them given how hard the game becomes.

Speaking of which, I got my 1cc in hard mode now for Strania, with a full 9DAN weapon ranking bonus, which is always my goal when I try to clear Strania. The route above for my items worked eventually, and despite some close calls I managed to clinch the clear on my last sliver of health in the final duel. Pure cinema, as they say.

I am currently fucking around with Side Vower and even stage 2 is sending me into a fit. This is so much harder than the Strania side... or am I just that caught off guard? I've only gotten to stage 3 so far on Normal (read: Easy) mode; I can't imagine doing this on Hard like you were "supposed" to on the arcade/xbox 360.

I love how relentlessly cool the bosses are for side vower however. They seem more edgy and menacing than the Strania bosses, even though you're fighting the "good guys!" I wonder if that bad-ass techno soundtrack has something to do with it.

[kid aphex]

I wonder if that bad-ass techno soundtrack has something to do with it.

Again.. Keishi Yonao's best work(!?) ---
and that's saying a lot.

[sunnshiner]

I wonder if that bad-ass techno soundtrack has something to do with it.

Again.. Keishi Yonao's best work(!?) ---
and that's saying a lot.

Yeah, Strania's one of the games that needs to be played with the sound through the hi-fi instead of the crappy TV speakers.

I've been playing it again a bit, it's certainly chaotic but I put that down to the shape of the play area and the speed your mech moves at. Dunno. I'm never likely to get past stage 3 cos I don't enjoy the game enough to stick at it, but when I want some messy mech action with a booming soundtrack I'll stick it on and put a couple of credits into it. If I had it on disc (like BITD on a top-loading system like the Saturn or PS1) it'd have been ripped out of the console and rage-frisbeed across the room multiple times by now

There's a topic for a thread; "Digital downloads of games have removed the catharsis of rage-quitting a physical copy of a game- discuss"

[EmperorIng]

What determines S ranks in the game? Obviously not getting hit, but I can do that and still get an A or B rank, say on Vower stage 2. Do you have to kill the boss in a certain amount of time too?

I think I have put well over 30-40 hours into this new port, especially as I am trudging through the waaaaaaaaaaaay harder Side Vower. This one is not to be missed; I really see it now as the other half of the game and people who stop with Strania are depriving themselves (despite how frustrating this side is!!!!).

[NeoStrayCat]

What determines S ranks in the game? Obviously not getting hit, but I can do that and still get an A or B rank, say on Vower stage 2. Do you have to kill the boss in a certain amount of time too?

I think I have put well over 30-40 hours into this new port, especially as I am trudging through the waaaaaaaaaaaay harder Side Vower. This one is not to be missed; I really see it now as the other half of the game and people who stop with Strania are depriving themselves (despite how frustrating this side is!!!!).

From what I've played countless times throughout its history. Most of the time, getting an S rank attributes usually to not lose a single life, pickup as many weapons as you can (this both increases the OD gauge slightly and contributes to S rank and Dan rank gain), and destory anything that moves before you fight the stage boss. However, you don't have to defeat bosses quickly, you can even still get the S rank even before or after the time runs out, since usually the Stage 1 boss on the Stranian side has a pattern that usually cycles every now and then for score chasing with specific weapons, for example. (Not sure if using the O/D boosts S rank perctanges, so, I dunno, but it might, lol.)

Otherwise, yeah, not doing most of those, or getting hit a couple of times (each hit dropping your bonus point rank by 1) will drop your stage score rank bonus. (From S down to C rank.)

But yeah, if anything, its still the same Strania that I know, just with a slight upgrade with the EX version additions. As for your "gripes" Ing, yeah, it would have been nice if it did include replays, and a display to see what weapons you've already got Dan rank in, so you won't be confused which ones you've already did instead of having to wait to see which ones you did get after clearing the final stage. Would make scoring management easier. As for pre-exa damage...no, lol. If I want to speedrun against a boss, then I need that option, lol.

[AGermanArtist]

Shame this is on the list of no-boot Switch games on Switch 2
https://www.pcguide.com/news/heres-a-fu ... 40ee7fc369

Hope it gets a fix, I bought it fairly recently despite having the 360 version on Series S.

[dai jou bu]

Xbox 360 senko no rondes don’t run on modern xbox but strania does, but strania on switch doesn’t run on switch 2.

G.Rev is back, guys!

[soupbones]

Any plans for this to come to PS4/5?

[dai jou bu]

Any plans for this to come to PS4/5?

They developed/published this release entirely in-house, so unless a bigger publisher/porting house foots the bill so they can port the game to other home systems like what happened with the fever dream that was Senko no Ronde 2, this version of Strania is stuck on switch for now.