Aleste is coming back?!

[xEbb1993x]

Still nothing…

[Faith]

We got a tiny bit more footage and a teaser about Branch in the latest M2 showcase.

https://www.youtube.com/live/h0P5NUjp8S ... hV&t=11632

Just says coming soon, with not even a planned release year.

O_O"... that looks... good! But knowing my super luck... when it is finally released... it will not be on PC.

[xEbb1993x]

O_O"... that looks... good! But knowing my super luck... when it is finally released... it will not be on PC.

I'm pretty sure it will get a Steam release.

[Flashman]

Things are still a bit quiet for a 2025 release, which is what it was slated at last I heard, I do wonder if it's going to be pushed back.

My feeling is, they will also release the Aleste compilation pack V2 in and around the same time, so people can play Musha and Super Aleste on modern consoles, while hype for the series is at a maximum.

[segasonicfan]

ah yeah, that makese sense. Although a delay this long I imagine there's internal dev / funding/ employee issues of some sort.

Regardless, it looks pretty amazing. I love the sprite art forever, but the gameplay and polish going into this one look stellar.

[ExitPlanetDust]

I finally broke the seal on my Aleste Collection last night and I spent an hour playing GG Aleste 3. What an excellent little game. I’m really impressed that this runs on GG hardware. Special difficulty doesn’t mess around. All Range is pretty busted though.

[Faith]

I'm pretty sure it will get a Steam release.

Actually where did you see that? Because I saw when they announced delay, here:

https://www.compileheart.com/news/?num=20251106

It only says PS5/PS4/NSW!~

[xEbb1993x]

I'm pretty sure it will get a Steam release.

Actually where did you see that? Because I saw when they announced delay, here:

https://www.compileheart.com/news/?num=20251106

It only says PS5/PS4/NSW!~

Weird... Usually Steam is one of the many go-to ports to this day, not sure why it just says only those three...

[xEbb1993x]

It's already Christmas Eve tomorrow, are we not gonna get any news about Senjin Aleste getting a console port, as well as news about Aleste Branch and Zaleste soon?

[Marc.bret.87]

It's already Christmas Eve tomorrow, are we not gonna get any news about Senjin Aleste getting a console port, as well as news about Aleste Branch and Zaleste soon?

Kinda "funny" to think the year started with a video featuring Aleste Branch and we've got nothing else since then.

[xEbb1993x]

I hope we get something before the end of the year. It’ll already be 2026 and Ellinor Waizen still hasn’t made her triumphant return yet.

[DietSoap]

“Next year marks the 10th anniversary of M2’s publishing brand, M2ShotTriggers. A lot can happen over 10 years, and we’d like to deliver as much of everything we’ve been stockpiling as possible to everyone. With all the sneak peeks and things we’ve already shared, it might end up being the most information-packed year we’ve ever had… or so I believe. Honestly, it’s gotten to the point where we’re wondering if we’ll need to adjust our release schedule, because it kind of feels like we’ve saved up way too much.”

Maybe 2026 is the year it finally happens (it's not)

https://www.gematsu.com/2025/12/japanes ... -ambitions

[xEbb1993x]

I hope so.

[eksratu]

I hope we get something before the end of the year. It’ll already be 2026 and Ellinor Waizen still hasn’t made her triumphant return yet.

Don't get too excited, but it looks like M2 is releasing some kind of video on New Year's Eve. They made a Youtube Shorts announcement here: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/dSY6e7yzT5k

There's absolutely NO guarantee that it will be an Aleste announcement or anything, but there's a chance.

[CerealPT]

man really hoping for Aleste and some retro port (any cave or Raizing game would make me happy but i really fell Batrider would be the best one)

[xEbb1993x]

It's just that Aleste and Ubusuna have been kept in the dark for so long now, but years after their announcements, there still hasn't been any leads on them. I was hoping now that we got Night Striker GEAR out of the way, there would finally be some progress.

[eksratu]

Lmao it was truly nothing but a fun piece of New Year's art of the SenXin Aleste characters. It was a five-minute video of gingerbread house building and a small celebration of 10 years of M2 STG.



There WAS an assurance that Branch is on the way, and that there will be announcements in 2026 from M2 STG, but it was the most noncommittal wording ever that leaves room for Branch to NOT get announced next year.

[Sengoku Strider]

It's cute, I like it.

[segasonicfan]

I 100% support developers taking their time.
None of these games are huge money makers and with everything happening in the world economy right now I give some grace to the people that dedicate so much time and passion to these small projects.

Timelines and assurarances are important if pre-orders or something were collected. Aside from that, all I have is polite begging with a hint of groveling

(P.S. speaking from experience as a gamer and retro games designer here, it took me 2 years to release the Virtual Juice Virtual Boy add-on and it's still difficult to keep in stock due to low margins and tricky BOM stuff)

[1000Eyes]

Is there a solid description somewhere of how scoring in Senjin Aleste works? Reviews, even positive ones, seem to neglect this.

[segasonicfan]

RetroGamer had a great article recently with the dev behind Shenjin. He said he'd like a home port, but it's not top of the list or anything.

(also everyone here should subscribe to RetroGamer, that mag is the best!!)


- Segasonicfan

[Yakkers]

Is there a solid description somewhere of how scoring in Senjin Aleste works? Reviews, even positive ones, seem to neglect this.

Sorry to bump this a few months down the line, but I've been digging into the game a lot lately (and working on a translation patch) and am slowly updating its shmup wiki entry with everything I know about it. I don't know exactly how some of the finer things work like what contributes to the counter in the top right underneath rank which drives the boss kill bonuses and how rank and medal counter factors into everything, but otherwise I have it mostly worked out.

The tl;dr version is that enemies have their bullets canceled into medals Espgaluda-style while you're in Power Up mode. There are four medal tiers indicated by increasingly larger bronze, silver, gold, and platinum medal sprites. At 500 medal counter you go up to silver tier and at 750 medal counter you go up to gold tier. When you kill an enemy up close it'll drop the next tier up from what your medal counter is, which means the only way to get platinum medals is by close killing enemies while your counter is at gold tier since it itself maxes at gold. When Power Up ends, you lose 25% of your medal counter (50% on expert difficulty) and it slowly drains outside of Power Up. On casual difficulty the medal counter caps at 1000 and on novice difficulty there is no medal counter, the tier is just based on how many ships you have ready. It's gold with all 4 ships up and goes down to silver with one incapacitated and down to bronze with 2 or 3 down.

So, the scoring seems to revolve around being in Power Up as much as possible and always going for huge cancels, shooting stuff up close where possible. Bombs also cancel into medals while in Power Up so that's a big part of it too. Extending Power Up by picking up swap items in Power Up rather than letting it end and reactivating is ideal for scoring since it means your counter gets cut less often and also I believe collecting a swap item while in Power Up is actually what increases the rank. Also take note that choosing "Assist On" in configuration is bad for scoring because it causes the energy gauge to drain faster, even when Power Up is activated manually.

It's very work in progress, but keep an eye here as I document it in more detail!
https://shmups.wiki/library/Senjin_Aleste

[xEbb1993x]

Ubusuna's sudden cancellation has got me on edge... I'm really worried about Aleste Branch right now. I seriously hope nothing bad happens to this game because I heard it was on the verge of completion...

[Yakkers]

Bumping this to follow up, would it be cool to post the translation patch on this forum? It feels a little sketchier to do it with an arcade-only game that's still live than it does with an old mame rom from 2002 or something, but it's also something we just don't have access to here. I do intend to take it down if we ever actually get a translated PC release, or retool it for that version instead if it's Japanese only.

It'll be an .ips patch for the main exe and a bunch of replacement .png and .psb files for the text that's baked into bitmaps (which is most of it). I just have the endings left to go, but that's still quite a lot since there's a ton of different text for all the ending/leader combinations and it's all in bitmaps so there's a lot of work aligning and fitting it all.

[mojilove]

Bumping this to follow up, would it be cool to post the translation patch on this forum? It feels a little sketchier to do it with an arcade-only game that's still live than it does with an old mame rom from 2002 or something, but it's also something we just don't have access to here. I do intend to take it down if we ever actually get a translated PC release, or retool it for that version instead if it's Japanese only.

just my personal opinion, but if you post a patch and it gets even mildly popular, you run the risk of M2 cancelling any plans they may have of a console or pc release. I agree with you in that this is different compared to older mame roms. "we don't have access" doesn't earn much sympathy in the eyes of rights holders in japan

[Yakkers]

just my personal opinion, but if you post a patch and it gets even mildly popular, you run the risk of M2 cancelling any plans they may have of a console or pc release. I agree with you in that this is different compared to older mame roms. "we don't have access" doesn't earn much sympathy in the eyes of rights holders in japan

Yeah, that's kind of what I'm worried about too. It's the kind of thing I would like to be able to share within small trustable communities so people who want it can access it but not have it spread around and end up in youtube videos and in teknoparrot prepackage downloads and stuff.