X2 for Saturn...almost

[Limbrooke]

I found thison Yahoo Japan. Seems to be the case only but I guess it was originally planned.

[Ganelon]

Nice find, those box portraits make the game look so much better than it actually is...

[GaijinPunch]

Yes, it's on the gamengai unreleased list. I need to fix that damn thing. Got the number printed out.

I've bought from and sold to that seller before. He has an impressive colletion, that's for sure. I bought a similar item from him a while back.

[Turrican]

Nice find, those box portraits make the game look so much better than it actually is...

I don't quite understand what you mean - those stills are taken from the game, so it looks exactly as it is.

Interesting item btw.

[D]

Huh? What is X2? anybody got more info please?
It's unreleased or was it released, but it sucks donkeya**?

[theevilfunkster]

I was flicking through some old CVG magzines the other day and found an advert for X2, on PS1 and Saturn. I'll scan it if I can be bothered.

[BulletMagnet]

Huh? What is X2? anybody got more info please?
It's unreleased or was it released, but it sucks donkeya**?

It was released on PS1 in Europe and Japan, but never made it to the Saturn, or the US. I beat the JP version on my third try...supposedly the PAL version is harder, but not in a good way. Not absolutely awful imo, but nothing to seek out very fervently either.

[Ganelon]

Nice find, those box portraits make the game look so much better than it actually is...

I don't quite understand what you mean - those stills are taken from the game, so it looks exactly as it is.

Interesting item btw.

Doesn't seeing those bright, colorful screens make you want to leap up and play the game...? Only to see that most the game is actually pretty dark, and not very fun (although certainly nice looking and colorful).

[Turrican]

It was released on PS1 in Europe and Japan, but never made it to the Saturn, or the US. I beat the JP version on my third try...supposedly the PAL version is harder, but not in a good way. Not absolutely awful imo, but nothing to seek out very fervently either.

Cool, we bought a Jpn X2 roughly at the same time, BM.
There have been a couple of X2 threads recently, so I think I'll post my impressions here.

Overall - I'm very satisfied. I heard Kiken about the differences, and I used to think they were essentially bound to 50/60hz speed and the increased firepower (which by the way remains by far the most appreciated change). But playing the game (which just arrived this morning in the mail), I noticed the game has been tweaked in other aspects as well:

1) First, the enemies' orange bullets have been more than doubled in size - this is a very welcome change, as they were so tiny that you could hardly distinguish them, especially on stage 2.

2) Then, I noticed two new power-ups capsules have been introduced: the all-important Extra Life, which is obtained by destroying some bosses, and the "slow-down" power-up, which is the all-new fourth morph of the "shield-speedup-energy" icon. Now, I usually pick up XS02 for a game that scrolls at this slow pace, because I need firepower more than speed. But when I've tried using XS03 or XS01, the play can be ruined forever by picking up too many speedups - you were doomed to death in the PAL release. I felt adding slow-down was very thoughtful.

3) Last but not least, the extend criteria has been revised as well - I haven't checked exactly when it triggers, but I managed to get roughly one extra-life per stage in the later levels.

As a result of these changes, I've been able to reach Criticus with one continue (the bastard killed me, alas, so no 1cc yet - scored 5.842.450), while for comparison I don't think I've ever passed stage 5 without continuing in the PAL release.

EDIT: 1CC - normal - 6.485.510

So, kudos to Team 17 or Capcom, whichever tweaked the game. It truly shows how a better balance in gameplay can make or break the same game... For anyone who was even remotely interested in the game (I think to you, Shatterhand ) I strongly suggest to avoid the PAL release at all costs. It's not harder, it's just stupidly broken in gameplay - I wish I had imported the Japanese one in 1997, instead of being stuck for ten years with X2 PAL. Einhander or TFV versions' differences are ridiculous compared to this case.

P.S. oddly enough, I didn't notice the "in-game monitor" special effect in the first stage - could it be that it was removed in the Jpn rev?

Doesn't seeing those bright, colorful screens make you want to leap up and play the game...? Only to see that most the game is actually pretty dark, and not very fun (although certainly nice looking and colorful).

The game is colorful for the most part, and much more fun to play in its Jpn rev.

[BulletMagnet]

Cool, we bought a Jpn X2 roughly at the same time, BM.

Heh, small world.

In any event, I still say it's nothing too special...I found the enemy patterns and such very uninspired throughout, although the overall graphical quality wasn't bad. As an example, the last boss (Criticus, as mentioned by Turrican) has a grand total of 3 attacks, which he repeats in sequence over and over again until he dies: he gets a bit faster as you damage him, but that's about it. Even worse, the "dragon" boss (I forget which stage he's at) has only ONE attack! There are also several "you'll never dodge this unless you've played before" attacks, and honestly, they're about all that'll keep you from 1CCing the game on your first try...on defaults at least, I haven't tried it on "Hard."

Then again, I've never played the PAL version, so I can't appreciate what tweaking and whatnot happened between this version and that one, I'm just sort of looking at it "in a vacuum."

[Turrican]

Cool, we bought a Jpn X2 roughly at the same time, BM.

Heh, small world.

In any event, I still say it's nothing too special...I found the enemy patterns and such very uninspired throughout, although the overall graphical quality wasn't bad. As an example, the last boss (Criticus, as mentioned by Turrican) has a grand total of 3 attacks, which he repeats in sequence over and over again until he dies: he gets a bit faster as you damage him, but that's about it. Even worse, the "dragon" boss (I forget which stage he's at) has only ONE attack! There are also several "you'll never dodge this unless you've played before" attacks, and honestly, they're about all that'll keep you from 1CCing the game on your first try...on defaults at least, I haven't tried it on "Hard."

I agree. This game is very much inscribed in the european tradition - the emphasis was on getting cool graphics and show off what you could do on the hardware - Team 17 were demo coders before getting serious. In a sense, playing it again I sensed it close to Menace and Blood Money - the slow paced scrolling, on purpose to let you admire detailed backgrounds and sprite animations. The waves one after another, enemies often lacking any interesting pattern, but almost never to be seen again in the game, unique to their stage... The useless weapon-collecting and cycling system, again done just to admire the cool effect (notice how your arsenal doesn't get a downgrade when you die)... This game is old-school and not in a necessarily good way.

However, while the philosophy behind it is still questionable, at least passing to the Jpn rev meant the correction of many flat out gameplay errors. Trust me, the improvement is significant. This way, it's a more than decent shmup and the only of its kind (euro-breed) on playstation - brings variety into the lineup Perhaps the game has leaned to much towards easyness -getting to the last boss the same morning I received it speaks for itself- but after all, it's much better this way. Haven't tried Hard yet, but I'll let you know.

P.S. interesting how even Project X didn't get difficulty calibration right, and had to be rereleased as Special Edition '93 to be more accessible. However, I think X2 is the winner of the two - at least they got rid of inertia...

[theevilfunkster]

I've scanned the advert with both the Playstation and Saturn logos on it, also scanned a review (if you can call it that) of the Playstation version found in the same magazine (CVG).

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y193/t ... /x2001.jpg
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y193/t ... review.jpg

[Shatterhand]

I doubt the japanese version would be much better than the pal one. I do have the pal version.

Project X is worse than X2 for sure, I still can't get why the heck this game was so much celebrated among Amiga fans (But alas, Amiga players also consider XENON 2 a good game, while they negate Apidya, Disposable Hero, Battle Squadron and Uridium 2.... whatever)

[Turrican]

Well, since we've gone into the 56k warning mode - X2 was even given the honor of a front cover here in Italy:

http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/6303/x2coverwi1.jpg

The review was enthusiastic, it took 93% and was the highest ranked shooter on the magazine - only to be surpassed by Einhänder years later, rated 95%.

For the record, on this 32 issue, other than X2 were reviewed Sexy Parodius (88%) and Strikers 1945 (86%) - this gives you an idea of how much the local press was in love with all that had its roots on the Amiga age...

[Turrican]

Preview from an earlier issue, showing non-definitive pics:

http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/5175/x2previewvw2.jpg

A couple of images taken from the review:

http://img50.imageshack.us/img50/9439/x2renderkj4.jpg

http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/1293/x2render2sw4.jpg

[Ghegs]

Ye gods - huuuge images abound. I changed all the embedded images here into links instead.