Tatsujin Extreme (PS5/PC)

[Steven]

I was curious about the aspect ratio because I know weird people are going to complain about it. I found something really interesting: if you have both of them running at a 1080 vertical resolution (yes, bad scaling, I know, but there is a reason) and put the original Tatsujin right next to Extreme and chop the sides off of Extreme, the player ship is almost exactly the same size in both games. I got a screenshot from the Steam page, which was at 1920x1080, hence why I chose that resolution for the comparison, and took some screenshots using the Bitwave PC version. The final boss showed up here, so I compared the stage 3 boss from the attract mode because I was lazy and also the final boss because might as well considering it's the same boss.

Spoiler

As you can see, the proportions are VERY similar, so I don't want to hear anyone complaining about how the game is automatically ruined by its aspect ratio, because it isn't. It's really not that different at all outside of having a lot more horizontal room, and if the game was 100% identical to how it is but the sides got chopped off, nobody would complain about it.

Steam page is up now: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3323 ... N_EXTREME/

That new footage looks amazing.

Yeah, it looks a lot better in motion than it does in screenshots. It's super smooth as of the old demo from 2 years ago. I was surprised at how awesome it was.

So often when folks say they're "remaking a classic", I get my expectations up and wind up disappointed (Sonic Wings Repine), but this looks really slick - like what I imagine when I hear the words "Tatsujin 2025".
The gauge with the more powerful shot looks like a really neat new addition; and the Heart Starter mode looks like a good intro for beginners (though it's only gonna be that one level??).
Gonna be refreshing the GabeSoft page til that demo drops.

I stayed awake until past dawn playing SMT V again last night/this morning only slept for a few hours because it became too bright and hot, and since Steam Next Fest starts at 0200 here, looks like I'm staying up until dawn again. My keyboard is already almost 20 years old and my up key doesn't work properly, but I may need a new F5 after this too. If it doesn't get put up immediately I may have to go to bed because I already spent the entire day exhausted and with blurry vision from not sleeping. I really should stop doing this to myself eventually, but I probably won't.

But yes, this does indeed look really good, and it WAS really good as of the last time I played it, so I guess the best thing to say is that it still looks really good. Still have about 30 minutes left until the Steam Next Fest thing starts, so I had better find something to do before then.

BTW the last boss showed up in the TGS demo as the final boss of that demo, too. Not sure what to make of Heart Starter yet, but you can play it for score, which is cool. I wonder how the demo's arcade mode will be. If it's like the TGS demo, it's going to be interesting. That TGS demo was absolutely not afraid to beat the crap out of players. I hope they kept the massive walls of revenge bullets from the TGS demo because that was a lot of fun.

Edit: demo is up. Time to Rock the Shooting!

[Bassa-Bassa]

It's really not that different at all outside of having a lot more horizontal room,

But that's a critical difference, mind. I think the major complaints regarding full wide screen for vertical scrolling games are the long distance on the horizontal axis (against the vertical one) and that it usually looks quite unnatural and just forced by today's dumb standards. Sure - if, in addition, the ship is too big for the vertical view port, new issues surface, but that's just bad design. Not every game has to be badly designed because of full wide screen format, much the contrary, but as a prerogative, it's not one I''d pick. And seems most devs didn't, either.


In other words, this:



looks better and is easier to finely tune than this:

[MJR]

I was pleasantly surprised by this demo. It played really well and looked decent. My biggest concern was aspect ratio, but thankfully enemy wave design complemented it rather well. Will buy this.

[Steven]

Demo arcade mode 1 miss. I can't believe I died where I did...

Here's for you, fellow Toaplanners who don't have a PC. Behold my shameful death. Will no miss in a while, but it's 0350 and I need to sleep.
https://youtu.be/Pt0HctNRuI0

Edit: fuck sleep, no miss get.

Assuming that they aren't changing anything and that following stages are the same length or so, this game has Tatsujin Ou stage lengths. That's... really long. It's hard to say much because there is only one stage to play here, but yeah, this is definitely Tatsujin, but modern and shiny.

Demo is pretty good. I wish that the first half had less rocks and more enemies, but I noticed that the rocks block enemy shots. The EX shot, which wasn't in the TGS demo, demolishes minibosses in a hurry. It's insanely powerful. Game feels super good to play. Never seen a game with both speed powerups and a speed select button. It's nice to be able to speed down for the boss. There is no way they are keeping the final boss in the first stage, I'm guessing, so this is probably going to change.

Don't bother playing this on Steam Deck. It has the same problem as Triggerheart Exelica where the game should run perfectly but runs at half the display's refresh rate. Sadness.

It's really not that different at all outside of having a lot more horizontal room,

But that's a critical difference, mind. I think the major complaints regarding full wide screen for vertical scrolling games are the long distance on the horizontal axis (against the vertical one) and that it usually looks quite unnatural and just forced by today's dumb standards. Sure - if, in addition, the ship is too big for the vertical view port, new issues surface, but that's just bad design. Not every game has to be badly designed because of full wide screen format, much the contrary, but as a prerogative, it's not one I''d pick. And seems most devs didn't, either.

Yeah, it's very important to consider the aspect ratio because everything's going to be weird if you use what you have incorrectly and this game has a very unusual aspect ratio. This game has been in development for several years now. I think Yuge-san's been not necessarily actively developing but at least planning this game since he made Tatsujin (the company) in 2017. 2 years ago, the game was about 20% finished, and Yuge-san said he kept redoing stuff over and over to improve it. I wouldn't be surprised if it was largely because of the aspect ratio. Fortunately, I think it turned out pretty well in this case.

[Bassa-Bassa]

Seems the guy in charge of this is ex-Seibu/ex-Gulti staffer Takayuki Saitou:

https://x.com/TATSUJIN_Games/status/193 ... 23257788#m

[Firehawke]

Initial reaction: Cautiously optimistic.

It has the feel. I'm not expecting super-high-end 3D graphics, nor would I want them to wreck bullet visibility that way. As much as I like R-Type FInal 2, visibility on that gets downright bad.

The only major concern is that 16:9 and how that's going to make it even harder to keep your sides clear. I'm not really liking that aspect, but the rest is good enough that I'm willing to give it a shot.

[Lethe]

Great demo. I can't imagine anyone who likes the first game being disappointed with this. The widescreen is an improvement at best, neutral at worst.

The blue weapon is really really overpowered right now, it deletes everything in short order without using the EX-shot, and it even penetrates the rocks, completely negating them. I see the new fourth weapon is white this time instead of the traditional yellow, presumably to better communicate that it's a useless deathtrap. You can damage things with EX-shot then finish them off with normal shot to instantly get all your bar back. That's probably an intended interaction as there are several points where enemies respawn as fast as you can kill them.

I needed to manually frame limit the game to stop it from turning my GPU into a fission chamber, and it has other typical Unity problems (fake resolution etc) but they're not really bothering me in this case.

[Daytime Waitress]

Really solid demo that I reckon is doing well to walk that tightrope for both new and experienced players.
Heart Starter feels like a good on-boarding for people completely new to shooters.
Story modo is another slight step up and clearly caters to folks who want to see the game through without having their teeth kicked in (ask me how I know the boss has a hitbox when it begins its rotating animation...).
And then you get arcade mode, where the bullet speed of the first Karaage Boi is probably going to fuck you up.
A real nice difficulty gradient, all told.

I see the new fourth weapon is white this time instead of the traditional yellow, presumably to better communicate that it's a useless deathtrap.

Yeah, the homing shots always wind up wherever you don't need 'em, but fuck me if its EX shot doesn't look great.
As do the bombs, which have an all-around visceral aspect to them (visuals, audio and feel) - probably to be expected with Tatsujin's bombs and ex-Seibu staff in charge, but very on-point.
And yet, like others have noted, there's no real visual clutter - I did get knicked by stray rocks when the Mushihimesama Long Bois came out, but I felt that was more on me than not being able to see what the heck was going on.

I really liked how the music swelled as those stretchy fellas came into field, too - proper sense of showmanship
The music as a whole has this kind of spaced-out, almost chill vibe, but you're playing Tatsujin so you can't completely chill - it's not totally balls-out the entire time, and I definitely don't dislike it, is what I'm saying.

You can damage things with EX-shot then finish them off with normal shot to instantly get all your bar back. That's probably an intended interaction as there are several points where enemies respawn as fast as you can kill them.

Those final swarms reminded me more of F/A than Tatsujin, but it had a nice "stand your ground" feel to it where you knew that if you just keep your finger down, you'd be fine (even if the rocks worried you a bit).
Felt like it built well off the back of regular zako, who buzz you but appear to give you a bit of breathing room - not just kamikaze'ing you entirely.
And as MJR said, the waves seem to compliment the wider aspect ration rather than accentuate its potential negatives.

Thoroughly pleasantly surprised by this one - I'm just such a cynical old prick that I just assumed it would be a trainwreck or mediocre at best, but this is shaping up very nicely indeed

The only possible negative thing I could take away from it was the stage length.
Which I'm trying not to be too down on, because the original was just a straight up marathon with nary any breathing room.
But there were a couple of sections where I felt like you could have maybe cut them out and not lost anything - which stands in stark contrast to the OG's efficiency where everything is meticulously placed to murder you and not one second of screen time is wasted.

[Firehawke]

I did run into one classic Unity bug so far. If you move through the menus and select things too fast, the menus can get stuck until you alt-F4 out of the game.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

The Steam port of Tatsujin Extreme runs on the Steam Deck but with a 30fps framerate (unless there's a way to get it to run at the more acceptable smoother 60fps framerate spec) with the lowest 1280 x 720 resolution selected and in "full screen" mode is better than no demo at all (akin to the Switch port of Shinorubi running with the well-known 30fps framerate presentation even on the Oled based Switch setup). Granted that this is just a demo "with warts & all," it's quite impressive that the demo of TE was made available so soon after being listed on Steam shortly (better now than later, right?).

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Steven]

]Yeah, the homing shots always wind up wherever you don't need 'em, but fuck me if its EX shot doesn't look great.

I avoided the Homing Shot because I knew it was weak from the TGS demo, but then I accidentally picked it up while I was holding the EX shot button and suddenly this happened

Spoiler

My reaction was something to the effect of OH MY GOD. I hope I didn't wake up my neighbours by shouting too loudly. Full power EX Homing Shot has got to be one of the biggest shots ever, and the way it annihilates everything even though it's a homing weapon is terrifying. Too bad the normal shot version of it is so weak and the shots move so slowly, but the EX version is possibly the coolest shot in the game.

EX shot turns the Power Shot and Thunder Laser into something closer to focus shots and the Tatsujin Beam becomes more of a wide shot. Good stuff. I noticed that the game definitely spawns less enemies if you don't kill the minibosses fast enough; if you don't kill those big blue guys right before the bomb delivery guys fast enough, for example, the first bomb delivery guy won't appear, so you lose a bomb if you take too long, so you really should speedkill everything. It seems that is how the EX shot works with scoring, not by giving you more score directly, but by giving you more opportunities to score.

The Steam port of Tatsujin Extreme runs on the Steam Deck but with a 30fps framerate (unless there's a way to get it to run at the more acceptable smoother 60fps framerate spec) with the lowest 1280 x 720 resolution selected and in "full screen" mode is better than no demo at all (akin to the Switch port of Shinorubi running with the well-known 30fps framerate presentation even on the Oled based Switch setup). Granted that this is just a demo "with warts & all," it's quite impressive that the demo of TE was made available so soon after being listed on Steam shortly (better now than later, right?).

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

You too, huh? It's doing the Triggerheart Exelica thing where it runs at half of the Steam Deck's refresh rate... that really is disappointing. I hope they fix it, but for now it looks like this game is best avoided on Linux. Unlike Exelica, at least the game speed isn't tied to the refresh rate, so it's definitely playable, but I don't want to play it like this.

The only major concern is that 16:9 and how that's going to make it even harder to keep your sides clear.

Full power Thunder Laser should do it, just like the original Tatsujin.

[jepjepjep]

I just played the steam version of the demo on a HD arcade cab and I have to say that it was awesome! The music and vibe is a total homage to the og tatsujin. Love the new bomb animation and the EX shot is fun too.

The only bummer is that it is only one stage long. I'm looking forward to the full release.

[Firehawke]

I admit the Steam Deck performance had me scratching my head; there's nothing going on graphically that would justify it running so badly as half-speed.

I'd like to hope the final build will be a bit more optimized, but experience says that smaller developers (especially Japanese developers, who are known to not really do great PC ports to begin with) don't generally have the time or interest to put effort into optimization. I know how cynical that sounds, but every person here can probably name at least a handful of PC releases from smaller devs (especially Japan) that are missing keyboard key binding, proper full screen toggle, and so forth. coughcoughm2coughcough

[Steven]

Yeah, if it's the same problem that Exelica has, it's a Linux/Steam Deck problem.

Tatsujin may not be making the PC version, though. When I talked to Uemura-san about getting some bugs fixed for Snow Bros Wonderland, he told me to email Clear River, so it wouldn't surprise me if this PC version is also being done by Clear River and Tatsujin is only making the PS5 version.

[qmish]

I played the demo, and... didn't like it.

I never was much a Toaplan boy though, maybe because.

Still, it felt like a super non-exciting slog for me, sorry.

Didn't even reach the boss in my two runs, but it doesn't sparkle desire to try for me either.



I just don't feel it.

Idk. Sure, music is nice, and objectively this production is great quality compared to abeforementioned Sonic Wings Reunion.

But...

p.s.

Funny that I was totally ok with R-Type Final 2 (which some hate with passion) - so it's not like I only ever enjoy high dynamics ones like Devil Blade Reboot, but this one doesn't click with me at all.



p.s.s.

And yes, totally not a fan of this approach to horiverts where you extend playfield even further left and right.

p.s.s.s.

There is also something weird in presentation of bomb - when you use it, it feels more like a death of player instead. If you get what i mean.

p.s.s.s.s.

know weird people are going to complain about it

What does this mean? I wouldn't deny that I'm "weird" in many aspects, but also this sounds very dirty, like an attempt to prevent game from being judged by preferences and tastes that each player has a right to have. Are we going again into "holy cow" situation here?

p.s.s.s.s.s.

Also, what's the idea of balance in this demo? It felt like the sequence of following: 2 minutes of super easy, than enemy who can kill you if you dont know its behaviour/pattern, then another 5 minutes of super easy, then spontaneously you get enemies that can flood the screen with bullets if you don't kill them fast. Well, at least for me those were the impressions. Which also contributes to desire of not playing again. Also didn't help that I never was a fan of Tatsujin series' "almost 10 minutes for the first stage" approach either. Like, when the second half of stage started with music change etc., it was the moment where I expected boss to be, but nope, that was just a half of stage though those "caterpillar locomotive" enemies are interesting, yes. But, indeed, throughout the stage I was catching a thought "just give me the boss and let's end with this already". Sigh.

To be more precise, though, I only played arcade mode and havent tried others.

p.s.s.s.s.s.s.

Those who remember me on this forum know that I almost never talk negative about games but these are my "most direct" impressions, that's it. I see that plenty of people enjoyed the demo - maybe it's really that I'm not in the target audience. Why not, considering e.g. I really love DeltaZeal and most folks don't care at all about it.

[Warp_Rattler]

I don't know the specific quirks or considerations for Steam Deck hardware, but I was able to run the demo just fine on Fedora 42 and a pretty antiquated set of AMD hardware. There was a bit of Unity's patented hitching and a big pause right around the background scenery transition a few minutes into the stage on story mode, though that may have been my system more than anything.

Given that the hardware requirements on the Steam page list 16 MB of RAM, however, I guess I've got enough resources to throw at it.

I haven't spent much time on the original Tatsujin titles so I don't have a strong frame of reference, but I don't think it was running at half speed. Steam's built-in FPS counter had most parts of the game running between 45-50 FPS (weird number), though transitions between loading screens/menu items would dip to the teens. That's probably also a "my computer" issue. The initial ship speed was a bit pokey, but the third speed power up was just right and levels 4/5 were getting into Dangun Feveron territory, so maybe that works as intended? There were a few times where old color bar test patterns would show up as the background--one right before the Clear River logo screen, and then again as the background on the Heart Starter results screen. It had the feel of a "missing assets" fallback or something.

The only major weirdness I came across was my first time trying Heart Starter mode. The UI rendered just fine, but the starfield background was static, I couldn't see my ship, and nothing was happening onscreen. I started pushing buttons and saw my bomb detonate off the bottom of the screen, and then I figured out I could move my ship back onscreen. The ship was rendered extra large, though. I ran the game fullscreen at 1280x720 just because I wasn't really sure how demanding it would actually be, and this was almost as if it was rendering the game area at 1080p but kept the UI at the selected resolution settings. I think other things must have been bugged too, though, as nothing at all seemed to be happening. I was able to back out to the main menu just fine and then start the story mode with no problems. I restarted the demo for good measure and didn't have this issue a second time, so...?

[M.Knight]

It felt like the sequence of following: 2 minutes of super easy, than enemy who can kill you if you dont know its behaviour/pattern, then another 5 minutes of super easy, then spontaneously you get enemies that can flood the screen with bullets if you don't kill them fast.

Yeah this is sadly on purpose, it is the entire series (and maybe the entire dev)'s shtick after all. So I guess this sleep->sleep->sleep->murder->sleep->sleep->sleep pattern means fans of the series will likely feel right at home.

[Shatterhand]

I gave a quick try at the demo.

As people have pointed out, it does feel like Truxton a lot. I feel people who love truxton wil love this game.

I think Truxton is probably the weakest vertical shmup by Toaplan, exactly because there are long stretchs of nothing. And I think the 16:9 ratio isn't doing it any favours. I know people say this is the case with all Toaplan games, but I really think Truxton pushes it a lot more.

But the game looks great, sounds great. It is very polished, and I bet many people will love it. For some reason here in Brazil people love Truxton, I think it has to do with how the Mega-Drive version was really popular here, and for some time the only proper shmup you could get for the system.

[kid aphex]

It doesn't look awful and it's pretty fun to play.
As someone who's been pretty disappointed in modern, Japanese-developed STG ... I too am cautiously optimistic.

[DietSoap]

I've had a blast with the demo. It looks good, feels good, and I think the addition of EX-shot meter and the new homing shot fit wonderfully and are a lot of fun. The pacing and difficulty are very reminiscent of Tatsujin 1, which I understand is not everyone's cup of tea, but I quite like it. The 16:9 aspect ratio is something I ultimately have mixed feelings about and wouldn't want to become the genre norm... but I think it actually works here?

As far as the Deck performance, yeah it's a bummer. It seems they're planning on fixing it for the full release, though. A very nice surprise.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/3323490/ ... 4581183645