Thunder Force Gold Packs

CecilMcW00t · Post by **CecilMcW00t** » Wed Mar 23, 2005 8:17 am

I'm seriously considering hunting these down. Do they have high score saving? Any extras I should know about?

Post by **Icarus** » Wed Mar 23, 2005 12:15 pm

Yup, they have high score saving. There is also a special little extra for Gold Pack 2, for masters of TF4. If you clear it in one credit, you'll be given a special access code to enable you to play as the TF3 ship in TF4, complete with the awesome weapons. Whole new game, ne?

That's the only secret that exists in the Gold Packs I believe.

Just watch out for the sound and music. I definitely liked the skritchy sounding Megadrive SFX and music better than the Gold Pack's muffled-sounding audio.

Jon · Post by **Jon** » Wed Mar 23, 2005 5:02 pm

Icarus wrote:Yup, they have high score saving. There is also a special little extra for Gold Pack 2, for masters of TF4. If you clear it in one credit, you'll be given a special access code to enable you to play as the TF3 ship in TF4, complete with the awesome weapons. Whole new game, ne? That's the only secret that exists in the Gold Packs I believe.

Just watch out for the sound and music. I definitely liked the skritchy sounding Megadrive SFX and music better than the Gold Pack's muffled-sounding audio.

Not to menton the complete lack of any slowdown found on the Genny version of TF4. It did make it a little easier.

tehkao · Post by **tehkao** » Wed Mar 23, 2005 6:08 pm

TF Gold Pack 1 plays the original music off the CD. (which is like getting a free CD soundtrack, plus it has 2 remixed tracks) Gold Pack 2 uses emulated Genny sound, so it should sound just like the original versions.

llaoyllakcuf · Post by **llaoyllakcuf** » Wed Mar 23, 2005 6:34 pm

and if anyone wants to own the original MegaDrive TF IV
-- buy it from me, heheh..

/shameless plug

EXMaster · Post by **EXMaster** » Wed Mar 23, 2005 7:01 pm

Icarus wrote:Yup, they have high score saving. There is also a special little extra for Gold Pack 2, for masters of TF4. If you clear it in one credit, you'll be given a special access code to enable you to play as the TF3 ship in TF4, complete with the awesome weapons. Whole new game, ne? That's the only secret that exists in the Gold Packs I believe.

Just watch out for the sound and music. I definitely liked the skritchy sounding Megadrive SFX and music better than the Gold Pack's muffled-sounding audio.

Interesting. So when you get the Thunder Sword add-on at the end of stage 5 does anything different happen when you use the TF3 ship.

CecilMcW00t · Post by **CecilMcW00t** » Wed Mar 23, 2005 8:40 pm

Oh wow! That sounds really nice! I'm gonna hunt these down right now... muwahahaha

How is Thunder Force AC? I played Thunder Spirits on SNES and it blew massive chunks. =/
But I heard that was a bad port of it.

Post by **Icarus** » Wed Mar 23, 2005 9:38 pm

tehkao wrote:Gold Pack 2 uses emulated Genny sound, so it should sound just like the original versions.

It *should* sound like the MD versions but it doesn't. Both the music and the sound effects sound very badly muffled, like your speakers are covered by several very thick bathtowels, or under a king-size quilt, or submerged in a bath full of water. It's a real shame, as it's the sound FX and the music I liked best about the Thunderforces (as well as the graphics and gameplay

). The muffled music doesn't do Technosoft's original music tracks justice

I shouldn't really complain though, since I'm getting all the TF games in two packs. But it's kind of irking when they did such an average job on the sound engineering here when Hyper Duel got both very faithful recreations of the original OST and an Arranged version on one game disc

CecilMcW00t wrote:How is Thunder Force AC? I played Thunder Spirits on SNES and it blew massive chunks. =/
But I heard that was a bad port of it.

Thunder Spirits is a very average port of Thunderforce AC. The only thing that made T-Spirits any fun to play was the slightly different stages.

Thunderforce AC on the Gold Packs is a very faithful recreation of the arcade game. Granted, the arcade game wasn't much good either, but it was fun in it's own little way. Plus the Gold Pack allows for full auto-fire in TFAC which saves on wrist pain (try playing TFAC in MAME without autofire and see what I mean)...

EXMaster wrote:Interesting. So when you get the Thunder Sword add-on at the end of stage 5 does anything different happen when you use the TF3 ship.

Actually, IIRC you don't actually get the "getting Thunder Sword" mini-cutscene at the end of stage five. It cuts straight into stage 6. Not like you would really need the Thunder Sword though, since Saber is far more powerful, and rapid firing

If I get round to it, I'll play Gold Pack 2 for a bit and try and record a replay of the TF3 ship obliterating the TF4 stages

CecilMcW00t · Post by **CecilMcW00t** » Thu Mar 24, 2005 3:02 am

*_*

Man I can't wait...

parodius · Post by **parodius** » Thu Mar 24, 2005 7:23 am

The music in GoldPack 2 is stored as raw audio files on the disc.
You can actually listen to them using Goldwave for instance.

The music from TF4 is stereo but only 37.8KHz, that's why it sounds 'muffled'.
The music from TFAC is mono 44.1KHz.

Icarus, what is that special access code you're talking about ?
Is it something that you can input with the controller, or that is saved to the backup memory ?

Post by **Icarus** » Thu Mar 24, 2005 10:10 am

parodius wrote:Icarus, what is that special access code you're talking about ?
Is it something that you can input with the controller, or that is saved to the backup memory ?

Both. When you complete TF4 (one credit or one life, can't quite remember), the game will "unlock" the TF3 ship, which you can access by inputting a special code at the title screen. Along with your score, the game saves this info in your save file, so you can unlock it again and again once you activate it.

CecilMcW00t · Post by **CecilMcW00t** » Thu Mar 24, 2005 11:55 am

By the way, Icarus, could you tell me if possible how much memory space the save files for these game take up?

Post by **Icarus** » Fri Mar 25, 2005 2:41 am

Well, the TF4 save takes up about 3 blocks of Saturn memory. I'm not sure about the rest, as my Saturn internal battery died a while ago and wiped all my save data

I'm in the process of relearning TF4 at the mo, so expect some updates in the next week or so. (Switching from manic verts to fast-paced memory based horzies is bad for the health

)

CecilMcW00t · Post by **CecilMcW00t** » Fri Mar 25, 2005 5:13 am

I have to get back to trying to 1CC TF4 on Mania when it gets here. I was able to get up to the Lava stage... I think it's Stage 7? But yeah I was surprised I was able to get that far. O_o

tehkao · Post by **tehkao** » Fri Mar 25, 2005 8:07 pm

Dang...1CC to Stage 7 on Mania?...that's pretty good...I think it took me almost 1 month of practice before I achieved that...I eventually beat the game, but wasn't able to to 1CC...

Post by **Icarus** » Sat Mar 26, 2005 12:52 am

tehkao wrote:Dang...1CC to Stage 7 on Mania?...that's pretty good...I think it took me almost 1 month of practice before I achieved that...I eventually beat the game, but wasn't able to to 1CC...

Shmups from way back then were always heavily memory-based, regardless of the way they were designed. TF4 might give off the impression that it's a fast paced, almost manic horzy, but if anything it's more akin to a fast Gradius in that you should learn the safe routes, and which weapon works best in a certain situation, in order to progress.

1LC on Normal diff is my best for just over 6mil. Haven't played Mania enough to see what my best is there...

CecilMcW00t · Post by **CecilMcW00t** » Sat Mar 26, 2005 6:20 am

Yup, I was at the point where I basically played the game everyday... got bored with Normal mode and tried out Manic. Back when I first bought it Manic seemed like it was impossible! But like Icarus said... I memorized a lot of the game and knew which weapon to use so it made it a lot easier. And the new enemies in Manic are sweet!

Post by **Icarus** » Tue Apr 05, 2005 1:53 am

Just in case you didn't believe me, here's a few screenshots taken from TF4, played with the TF3 ship, on stages Strite and Ruin:

And for more proof, here's a Strite stage replay, with the TF3 ship (XviD - 44MB)

(it's a direct download, so just Right Click and Save File As)

I can almost hear the thundering of feet as people rush off to load up Gold Pack 2 to unlock the TF3 ship

alpha5099 · Post by **alpha5099** » Tue Apr 05, 2005 2:34 am

Icarus, I can't get that movie to download. It downloads some 16 KB file, and the link just takes me to your site.

Post by **Icarus** » Tue Apr 05, 2005 3:04 am

alpha5099 wrote:Icarus, I can't get that movie to download. It downloads some 16 KB file, and the link just takes me to your site.

Do NOT left-click the link. Right Click and Save File As. I just tested it out, and it works fine here.

If it still doesn't work, let me know, and I'll stuff it up on the tracker instead

EDIT: Actually, since I'll be removing all the stuff off the frontpage and leaving only the ST-guides-related stuff (as well as random stuff like this) as direct download, I've disabled the hotlink protection from my site, so you should be able to download it properly now. Use Right-Click-Save-File-As just in case, though

CecilMcW00t · Post by **CecilMcW00t** » Tue Apr 05, 2005 4:25 am

Icarus wrote: I can almost hear the thundering of feet as people rush off to load up Gold Pack 2 to unlock the TF3 ship

LOL Those screens are awesome dude! I was gonna play some Mega Man X8 after I got home from work tonight but I believe plans have changed!

ST Dragon · Post by **ST Dragon** » Tue Apr 05, 2005 10:03 am

Icarus wrote:Just in case you didn't believe me, here's a few screenshots taken from TF4, played with the TF3 ship, on stages Strite and Ruin:

And for more proof, here's a Strite stage replay, with the TF3 ship (XviD - 44MB) (it's a direct download, so just Right Click and Save File As)

I can almost hear the thundering of feet as people rush off to load up Gold Pack 2 to unlock the TF3 ship

I haven't played Thunder Force AC on the Saturn. But TF AC is the arcade version of Thunder Force & it's not the same as TF3. TF AC doesn't let you choose levels unlike TF3 & the 1st level is the jungle stage from TF3, that's probably why you think it's the same, but the game is actually made up from the best levels of TF2 & 3.

Thunder Force AC (Arcade & Saturn) is almost identical to Thunder Spirits (J) on the SNES, minus the slowdowns.

You can try TF AC on MAME & Thunder Spirits on ZNES.

By the way, how do you unlock the TF3 ship in GoldPack2?

Post by **Icarus** » Tue Apr 05, 2005 4:58 pm

ST Dragon wrote:By the way, how do you unlock the TF3 ship in GoldPack2?

RE my post up above:

Icarus wrote:When you complete TF4 (one credit or one life, can't quite remember), the game will "unlock" the TF3 ship, which you can access by inputting a special code at the title screen. Along with your score, the game saves this info in your save file, so you can unlock it again and again once you activate it.

You only need to clear the game in ONE CREDIT. When you do, the game will save this info in your save file, and it'll also display an access code before it displays the high score table. You input this access code at the title screen to play as the TF3 ship in TF4.

I'm not going to tell you what the access code is. Needless to say, you can play as the TF3 ship in TF4 ONLY AFTER you have beaten the game once.

I kinda like it. Much like the Esprade characters in Espgaluda, the TF3 ship makes TF4 play like a different game with different strategies for stage navigation and weapon usage. I only wish they gave you a similar secret to use the TF4 ship in TF5

captain ahar · Post by **captain ahar** » Tue Apr 05, 2005 6:56 pm

Icarus wrote:Much like the Esprade characters in Espgaluda

what?!? arcade or ps2?

Ganelon · Post by **Ganelon** » Tue Apr 05, 2005 7:00 pm

PS2 of course (and only in the Arrange mode).

captain ahar · Post by **captain ahar** » Tue Apr 05, 2005 7:08 pm

how do i get it. that tends to be the only mode i've played lately on the game.

Ganelon · Post by **Ganelon** » Tue Apr 05, 2005 7:51 pm

No, not the actual Esprade characters themselves, just the knockoffs you play by default in arrange mode.

captain ahar · Post by **captain ahar** » Tue Apr 05, 2005 8:01 pm

i see. never played ESPrade so i wouldn't be one to notice details like that.

Neon · Post by **Neon** » Tue Apr 05, 2005 8:52 pm

I just bought Gold Pack 2 off a neogeo.com forum member. We'll see how it is...shame the sound effects have been enshittified but no slowdown will make thunderforce 4 enjoyable. It's ridiculous how it affects the music in the genesis version, if it didn't slow down the music as well I'd have no problem with it.

Post by **Icarus** » Tue Apr 05, 2005 9:00 pm

Neon wrote:It's ridiculous how it affects the music in the genesis version, if it didn't slow down the music as well I'd have no problem with it.

As far as I can tell, there is no slowdown in both the game and the music. The only thing different is in the SFX, which sounds like the announcer is holding her nose, and the explosions etc don't seem to have the same "punch" as the MD versions.

Other than that, it's just as good. And plays better with a Saturn pad than it does with a huge and chunky MD pad