Best Rail Shooters

[m.sniffles.esq]

Question: these days, is there a preferred Xbox emulator that can run Panzer Dragoon Orta?

It's one of the few Xbox games that still works on the one/x, so everyone just does that.

RE Air Twister

I dunno, the purist in me is sorta into the fact there's no auto-fire

"How do I play??"
"Stick and trigger"
"But... uh... how were you doing that 'lock' thing??"
"Just move over the enemy"

Seriously, anyone can figure it out in 15-20 seconds.
BUT unlike the majority of "you see? I'm boiling video games down to their essence" malarkey, it actually looks and sounds good, and not some fake, low-poly, 1986 World Champion Mets shit.

The Queen knock-off? I got nothing.
To me, it makes it seem like you're playing the Hawkman raid part of Flash Gordon, and that's one of the best parts of the movie.

And yeah, it's a little weak you have to play the 'original' or whatever mode to unlock the other modes. But really, it's just the same game. And c'mon, it's the Switch. You're just killing time on the bus anyway. Give the girl some new clothes/hair while you're at it. What will it hurt?

[EmperorIng]

Question: these days, is there a preferred Xbox emulator that can run Panzer Dragoon Orta?

It's one of the few Xbox games that still works on the one/x, so everyone just does that.

Well, I am not in a rush to buy a new console to play a 20+ year old game, but I will keep this in mind while I look for suitable emulation solutions.

[velo]

I dunno, the purist in me is sorta into the fact there's no auto-fire

I wouldn't fuss if only it were assigned to a face button. Another bit of purism is that even the cosmetic unlocks can't be used in arcade mode.

[m.sniffles.esq]

Another bit of purism is that even the cosmetic unlocks can't be used in arcade mode.

into it.

Also into the fact that every fucking popcorn gets a paragraph of unlockable 'lore' like a in a ps1 game. The metal ball? There's a story behind that ball.
Triple into the fact Yu Suzuki attributes quotes to himself, none of which are like, quotable at all

This shit right here, this is my shit
-Yu Suzuki

---

I don't know, maybe due to the month of solid 'meh' feedback, my expectations got subconsciously lowered. But with that said, shit like:


"Wait, the girl can fly. Why does she need a separate flying animal to help her in boss battles? Does it have a special offensive ability?"

"no"

"Extra protection?"

"no"

"Some tactical advantage?"

"none"

"Then why???"

"Because flying animals are fucking awesome, that's why"


Will forever be my jam.

[Sima Tuna]

I don't know, maybe due to the month of solid 'meh' feedback, my expectations got subconsciously lowered. But with that said, shit like:


"Wait, the girl can fly. Why does she need a separate flying animal to help her in boss battles? Does it have a special offensive ability?"

"no"

"Extra protection?"

"no"

"Some tactical advantage?"

"none"

"Then why???"

"Because flying animals are fucking awesome, that's why"


Will forever be my jam.

The Komainu Barrier mode of Space Harrier is full of funny little bits of text about the Komainu and the flying creature in the bonus stages. Just 'cause they're cool.

[m.sniffles.esq]

Well, I am not in a rush to buy a new console to play a 20+ year old game, but I will keep this in mind while I look for suitable emulation solutions.

I was more suggesting a possibility as to why no one seems to be in a hurry to solve whatever emulation problems it's having. In that, there's not much of a need to emulate it in the first place.

[Steven]

Xbox Series plays those old games through emulation anyway, as it isn't actually backwards compatible with those games, so if you need an emulator, there you go. That emulator is the exact and only reason that I am considering buying a Series X, too.

Setting that aside, I'm here for Air Twister info. I've been planning on getting it but have not gotten around to even buying it yet. Lots of people say it sucks, but also only has positive reviews on Steam, so I guess there is only one way to actually know.

[velo]

Another bit of purism is that even the cosmetic unlocks can't be used in arcade mode.

into it.

Turns out, none of the unlocks are usable for any of the Challenge modes, except Turbo mode. I take that as a hint that no, they don't actually expect anybody to play this thing at 2x speed on factory settings, which is reassuring... but yeah you have to beat the Extra stage and boss rushes fair and square.

So far I've only unlocked Fluffy bonus stages from weekly rewards. If that's a general rule, you'd have to start up the game at least three times a week for like half a year to get all of them. I'm sure I'll be done with unlocks long before then. The kicker is that Fluffy mode sucks. For a brief moment I mistook it for a 2D shmup bonus level, so imagine my disappointment when I realized you're dragging around this unarmed momentum-laden elephant with the analog stick through a minefield of obstacles. That and the number clicker minigame are definite signs of iPhone origins.

Another such quirk: I don't think anything in the game tells you that R1 activates the slowdown powerup. It must have been an onscreen virtual button in the phone version, but here you just have to figure out there must be SOME way to turn it on, and guess. The alt weapons having a charge shot is easy to miss too. The description text mentions a "long press to activate", but if you're not a reader, you might assume the different weapons are strictly cosmetic.

No online leaderboards. Not even a convenient local high score summary that I see. You have to navigate to a particular mode to see the score for it, and it doesn't even show your grade, so if you want to make a goal of S-ranking all the modes, you'll have to take notes. In fact it's pretty easy to miss when you set a new high score, since the game doesn't make any fanfare over.

Setting that aside, I'm here for Air Twister info. I've been planning on getting it but have not gotten around to even buying it yet. Lots of people say it sucks, but also only has positive reviews on Steam, so I guess there is only one way to actually know.

Despite all the above, it really really doesn't suck. Once you start up the game, it's all good. I wasn't expecting that soundtrack but I got into it very quickly.

[m.sniffles.esq]

Another such quirk: I don't think anything in the game tells you that R1 activates the slowdown powerup.

I guess that explains why the cart comes with an instruction card, even though the controls are really simplistic.

[xxx1993]

Just tried Air Twister and Operation Wolf Returns: First Mission. The former has a god-tier soundtrack that is very Queen-esque and is a worthy successor to Space Harrier. The latter, while still fun, does NOT fuck around on Hard mode. You die once, you restart the entire mission.

[neorichieb1971]

I haven't played them but they interest me and I can't see them mentioned.

N20 - PS1
Internal Section - PS1

Wouldn't say they are the best but I think they are worthy of a mention.

[Despatche]

A thread as old as this and zero mention of Torus Trooper...?

[m.sniffles.esq]

N20 - PS1

While I concur this game is incredibly underrated (and may actually be historic, as it may be the first game where the disc could be ejected after the game loads, and the player could supply their own soundtrack CD, AND the game's soundtrack could be played independently in a regular CD player. Although, there's some debate about this), I believe it's officially categorized as a "tube shooter". See also: Tempest, Juno First, Polybius, etc al

[m.sniffles.esq]

While I don't know if this counts as 'best' by any metric, the Rainbow Cotton "Remake" is out on everything May 9th

(Remake in quotes because it looks exactly like the Dreamcast assets probably grafted on a new engine)

[Sima Tuna]

While I don't know if this counts as 'best' by any metric, the Rainbow Cotton "Remake" is out on everything May 9th

(Remake in quotes because it looks exactly like the Dreamcast assets probably grafted on a new engine)

That reminds me, the dude who made Raging Blasters and a bunch of other indie shmups is making an Afterburner-like for his next game. Release on switch isn't too far away.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zf9WYEC3tIg

"Sprite-scale shmup" is such a marketing meme term. But the game looks alright. Kinda rare we get any rail shooter upcoming releases. I'll probably at least watch videos of the Rainbow Cotton remake. I heard the original game runs at like 9 FPS and controls like ass.

[m.sniffles.esq]

I heard the original game runs at like 9 FPS and controls like ass.

As one of the six people that bought the Dreamcast version, it's got a lot of problems...

[Steven]

I heard the original game runs at like 9 FPS and controls like ass.

Pretty sure that is for Panorama Cotton on the Mega Drive, which does indeed run at like 9 FPS and control like ass, not Rainbow Cotton.

[m.sniffles.esq]

Panzer Dragoon II Zwei Remake IS actually coming and will be playable at TGS

Per that annoying twitter thing:

Spoiler

[Steven]

Panzer Dragoon remake is worse than the original. It's hard to describe why aside from a vague "the controls feel super bad in the remake", but if you've played it on Saturn you already know and no explanation is necessary.

I hope this manages to escape that fate, although I doubt it will.

[m.sniffles.esq]

It's hard to describe why aside from a vague "the controls feel super bad in the remake"

I used "loose and floaty"
But that's just me

[Koa Zo]

Panzer Dragoon II Zwei Remake IS actually coming and will be playable at TGS

Wow! Fantastic!
Wild coincidence or premonition, just last week I did a search for any recent news of this project. Nothing. Was starting to question if it would be abandoned.
And here we go. It's on!

Ever since it was announced, I've wondered if they'll lean into the scoring that was somewhat hidden from casual players. PD2 essentially uses the same lock-on multiplier score system that was later implemented in Rez, but the game isn't presented as a score based game so most people just played it to clear.

We still see these comments about how 'bad" the first PD remake supposedly is. I don't see or feel the issues often talked about.
The Sony pad didn't cut it for me, but once I got a Nacon controller with a proper d-pad and then later a Hori Mini pad, the game played great with those controllers.


edit:
I just fired up the PS4 rev of PD1, playing with the Hori Pad Mini d-pad, there is nothing loose or floaty about it that I can discern. Controls feel "super bad"? That's just absurd.
Are all the detractors playing with an analog stick? Afterall, this was a d-pad based game originally and it certainly feels wildly different playing with an analog stick.

[Sima Tuna]

Panzer Dragoon remake is worse than the original. It's hard to describe why aside from a vague "the controls feel super bad in the remake", but if you've played it on Saturn you already know and no explanation is necessary.

I hope this manages to escape that fate, although I doubt it will.

The panzer dragoon remake certainly looks worse than the original, which I honestly don't understand? How do you completely kill the charm of the original dark aesthetic with the most bland, Unity Store Assets, Dollar General version of Panzer Dragoon ever?

Just why? Why can't we preserve the original visual style of games when remastering them? Smooth them rough pixels out or whatever if you have to.

I'll give the S-Tribute guys that at least, they never ruined Elevator Action Returns with a bunch of generic Unity assets.

[m.sniffles.esq]

Controls feel "super bad"? That's just absurd.

Yeah, I wouldn't go that far (although I seem to be part of minority)
Like I said, while it feels more loose ('floaty', even) than the Saturn, I felt the "Bro, this is straight-up unplayable" comments were a bit much.

If anything, I think there was a bit of "Bro, this port is trash. SO MUCH lag compared to the original! It's straight-up unplayable" comments about whatever game--only to discover, the port has pretty much the same amount of lag as the original--going on. One's memories tend to be rosier than the reality.

The panzer dragoon remake certainly looks worse than the original

But, I'm in accord with this. While I understand the up-res will cause some texture to be lost (while sound is more my job, I have noticed I that own a lot of blu-rays with "new 4k scans!!!!"--that either look too artificially clean, or are swung the other direction and slathered with this comically large artificial 'grain'--that I understand this is an issue), but in smoothing things out, a lot of character and ambiance got flattened.

Again, I think a lot of people got a wee-bit over dramatic over this, but I'm not going to say I didn't notice it too.

[Sima Tuna]

One of the problem with 4k cleaned-up scans of old movies is that the flaws in the old make-up and props become incredibly obvious. A good example are kung fu/wuxia films made by Shaw Brothers in the 1960s, '70s and '80s. They used a lot of stick-on beards and mustaches. In a VHS quality video, you won't really notice. You'll know the beard is fake but you won't see the joinings. Well, in the 4k blu-ray versions of the same films, you can suddenly see exactly where the glue was attached to the fake beard. The glue is a different shade than the skin and this color WOULD have been obscured by the low fidelity image, but not in a 4k image. You'll also more clearly see if an actor has bad teeth, a missing finger or any other distracting visual imperfection.

So that's just one example of how higher fidelity can expose flaws which might take one out of the presentation. But I consider that an inevitable consequence of improving technology and if the same thing happens in a video game (higher visual fidelity exposing some graphical problems that normally blend into the background on SD displays,) I consider it a fair trade-off. Because this kind of flaw does NOT compromise the original artistic vision. Yes, pixel art on HD displays doesn't blend as well as on SD displays. But it can still have its own quality which is fairly appealing to some. There's a world of difference between that and unity asset store territory imo.

[Randorama]

Is this the thread in which we discuss Night Striker and Galactic Storm? I suspect that the answer is a banal "yes". I am trying to 1-CC Taito's Galactic Storm and Sega's Galaxy Force II (on a keyboard...), with some rather hilarious results. Stellar OSTs, anyway.

[it290]

One of the problem with 4k cleaned-up scans of old movies is that the flaws in the old make-up and props become incredibly obvious. A good example are kung fu/wuxia films made by Shaw Brothers in the 1960s, '70s and '80s. They used a lot of stick-on beards and mustaches. In a VHS quality video, you won't really notice. You'll know the beard is fake but you won't see the joinings. Well, in the 4k blu-ray versions of the same films, you can suddenly see exactly where the glue was attached to the fake beard. The glue is a different shade than the skin and this color WOULD have been obscured by the low fidelity image, but not in a 4k image. You'll also more clearly see if an actor has bad teeth, a missing finger or any other distracting visual imperfection.

I know you're just citing this as an example, but those films were originally shot and projected on 35mm film, where those flaws would have been equally visible, it's just that standards were different back then, especially for films in that genre, and I think the HD presentations do a lot to highlight the beautiful costumes and set designs, which ups their immersion for me a lot more than any makeup flaws or whatever would take me out. One could say the same about the readily apparent SFX flaws in movies like Star Wars or The Birds — kind of distracting sure, but watching the whole thing on VHS is still a much worse experience overall. For stuff shot on film I would prefer watching in HD pretty much 100% of the time. The only thing that tends to ruin these scans is the use of AI or excessive DNR like in James Cameron's 4K releases.

For stuff shot on video though, upscales are pretty much bad at best and at worst atrocious, especially when AI is used. Maybe in a few years this tech will get good enough for this type of upscaling to work convincingly (doubt it though, because how is an AI supposed to know what some obscure SOV actor really looks like?), but it is definitely not ready for production right now.

[Sima Tuna]

One of the problem with 4k cleaned-up scans of old movies is that the flaws in the old make-up and props become incredibly obvious. A good example are kung fu/wuxia films made by Shaw Brothers in the 1960s, '70s and '80s. They used a lot of stick-on beards and mustaches. In a VHS quality video, you won't really notice. You'll know the beard is fake but you won't see the joinings. Well, in the 4k blu-ray versions of the same films, you can suddenly see exactly where the glue was attached to the fake beard. The glue is a different shade than the skin and this color WOULD have been obscured by the low fidelity image, but not in a 4k image. You'll also more clearly see if an actor has bad teeth, a missing finger or any other distracting visual imperfection.

I know you're just citing this as an example, but those films were originally shot and projected on 35mm film, where those flaws would have been equally visible, it's just that standards were different back then, especially for films in that genre, and I think the HD presentations do a lot to highlight the beautiful costumes and set designs, which ups their immersion for me a lot more than any makeup flaws or whatever would take me out. One could say the same about the readily apparent SFX flaws in movies like Star Wars or The Birds — kind of distracting sure, but watching the whole thing on VHS is still a much worse experience overall. For stuff shot on film I would prefer watching in HD pretty much 100% of the time. The only thing that tends to ruin these scans is the use of AI or excessive DNR like in James Cameron's 4K releases.

For stuff shot on video though, upscales are pretty much bad at best and at worst atrocious, especially when AI is used. Maybe in a few years this tech will get good enough for this type of upscaling to work convincingly (doubt it though, because how is an AI supposed to know what some obscure SOV actor really looks like?), but it is definitely not ready for production right now.

Oh for sure. I will take a clean image where I can see how the sausage was made over a grainy mess. It's the same reason I like crisp pixels with the bare minimum of smoothing. And you're absolutely right about the sets, which still hold up to today's standards (Shaws were always amazing at set work) and the costuming, which are unmatched really. I do think kung fu and wuxia films have a logic of their own, tied in with their own internal logic, tropes and mythos. And so certain bits of costuming or theater that may not look right to a casual western viewer are part of the whole discourse within the genre. Like, the "woman who dresses as a man in a wuxia story so she can act freely and without restraint." Usually, very little work is done to these female actresses in Shaw films to make them look in any way convincing as a man. It's just part of the logic of wuxia that we accept "okay, she is wearing kind of mannish robes and has her hair in a certain style, so she is Man now." And every character is fooled until the inevitable anime boob touch moment.

I don't know if it's just that standards were different back then, but maybe also audiences were a little less nitpicky and more willing to "buy in" to the spectacle. But um... Well, also I was just giving that as an example, as you say... And I am the nitpicky asshole who pointed it out in the first place. But to be fair! The dvd commentary for Five Deadly Venoms also mentions the improvement in picture quality revealing certain costuming flaws in that film.

Then there are the comparison shots of Chrono Trigger running on a CRT vs on an HD display, and how the sprite blending just isn't working on the hd display, so the image appears more messy. I know it's not exactly EASY to take an old game and put it on a modern console with a modern display and clean up the image, while still keeping the artistic integrity and original vision. But I vastly prefer when some attempt is made rather than a completely new set of assets from the unity store.

[AGermanArtist]

House of the Dead Overkill on Dolphin with a Dolphin bar.
Blue Estate on Steam which is currently less than €3 right now. Ignore IGN's review.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3053 ... _The_Game/

[m.sniffles.esq]

Not to totally derail this but

I know you're just citing this as an example, but those films were originally shot and projected on 35mm film, where those flaws would have been equally visible,

Not necessarily. The film printing/projection process has a circle of confusion, whereas digital does not.
This became a hot topic™ about 10 years ago when Paramount did a "New 4k Scan!" of Shane and put it back into theaters for a second. People were calling out Jean Arthur's obviously VERY heavy and distracting make-up (she was 50 at the time of shooting, and was supposed to be playing someone very much less than 50), and old heads were being adamant that they had seen it on 35mm numerous times and her make-up has never looked so bad. While new schoolers were being "That has to be the way it looks on the negative, it's not like a scan can create bad pancake make-up"

Turns out, both sides were right