New Neo-Geo shmup -- Last Hope [also for DC]

[Klatrymadon]

Mine arrived just now - COME ON! I have a few lectures to go to before I can play it, but I'll try to share some thoughts and enthusiasm later.

[hermosaguy]

Just go it! Will post impressions later on

[KBZ]

some dudes are saying there's more attention to detail than in any neogeo shmup, but not so much on the bosses maybe.

Gotta wait for the LE version, GURRRGG!!!

[scrilla4rella]

thinking about getting this from NCSX. Too bad i'm too late for the LE. Keep those impressions comming

[DavidHolliss]

Visually it does look good, it's rock hard/unforgiving on Normal difficulty, so far the only way I can get past level 1 is by playing on easy

There is also a very easy difficulty, and optimistic hard setting

You can play either Dreamcast or Arcade (Neo Geo) versions, DC one is a bit easier, and the debris is easier to spot. Couldn't initially spot many other differences myself.

So good to have a new shooter for the DC though, will post some more impressions and hopefully a video later today/tomorrow.

[tekneekz]

the music sounds chill and nice in the demos ive seen.

[yojo!]

The control scheme is total BS w/ a dreamcast controller. You can't easily keep the autofire ON and charge at the same time. When selecting "JOY" in the setup screen you get autofire and charge buttons assigned to X and A which makes it OK but then it becomes a really pain to access B to rotate the pod.

[fraggore]

man is it just me or is the game rock hard evan on very easy.
and it dont look to hot in vga mode must be running in low rez its looks pixelated.

And what are the little turrets all about on level 2. go anywere near them and the blow you up . seems like they were trying to make it to hard at times.
think i wll have to give it some more time to make up my mind if i like it or not but so far its not looking good.

[bVork]

So I've spent a couple hours with this, and I am NOT impressed. Here's a quick pseudo-review of each aspect.

Overview: Last Hope is similar to R-Type and Pulstar. It's a slow-paced, hard-as-balls game that requires precision and focuses far more on simple survival than mass destruction. Similar to those games, you have an orb that can be used to block enemy fire (but NOT enemies themselves). Unlike them, the orb cannot be detached from your ship but it can be 8-way rotated to position it around your ship. In addition, the orb itself can fire, which makes it absolutely essential for destroying the many rear-attacking enemies.

Gameplay: Unfortunately, the enemy patterns can be really annoying. There are points in the game where you're faced with kamikaze enemies right after a checkpoint, and don't have the orb to help stop them. Ship speed is initially really slow as well, making survival after a checkpoint as difficult as the typical Gradius game. I also noticed a few problems with enemies. Some of them will clip through walls, but others (most notably the kamikaze ones) will die. Bullets and enemies are really hard to see, leading to a lot of deaths where you simply don't know what hit you.

Control: You're limited to a few preset button selections. How hard would it have been to allow people to manually assign actions to buttons? With the awkward distance between DC buttons, being able to map the orb's rotation to the triggers would have been nice. That rotation also happens to be very finicky - holding down either rotate button invariably causes you to overshoot your intended orb location. Tapping it is frustrating, as really short and quick taps don't seem to register.

Graphics: Most of the art is fairly nice, though I'm not thrilled with the look of lasers and explosions. Unfortunately, the detail in the background art is a hindrance - it's really hard to see enemies (which tend to use the same colours as the background) or bullets (which cycle between dark red and gold, neither of which really stand out). The amount of shrapnel produced by destroyed also makes seeing bullets quite difficult.

Music: The music is absolutely incredible. It's like R-Type's sort of downtempo stuff mixed with classic Amiga. If the OST was sold separately, I'd instantly purchase it.

I wouldn't recommend buying this game without playing it first. It isn't a complete turd, but I don't think it's worth $40 either.

[hermosaguy]

I was literally at the point of forcing myself to play this game. I cannot recommend this to anyone. The control scheme for the Dreamcast is a joke, and you can't specify your controller layout. The rotational option is way too sensitive as well, though you can kind of get a feeling for it after a while, though it is a 'chore'.

The graphics are washed out and the gameplay is simply not fun. I rather enjoy R-Type and comparing Last Hope to it is a huge put down to those at Irem. After all the shooters I have played, this one is quite near the bottom. Nothing is special about this game to put it at par with anything on the Dreamcast...this is even below many 16-bit shooters on the Genesis and Super Nintendo. The music though, gets 2 thumbs up.

Granted this is just my opinion, but I put in a good 8 hours in this game, and I am certain it will never make it into my Dreamcast again. Play it at your friends or rent it if you can, but there are alot better things you can do with $40.

[EOJ]

This game sounds like total garbage. Glad I didn't buy it!

[Arvandor]

I'm not big on horis in the first place, which is why I held out to see about this one (not to mention... homebrew). Looks like I'll probably ignore this one, even if it IS a shmup for the Dreamcast -_^

[The Coop]

I personally find the game to be a good one. Here's a brief run down of my thoughts...

Graphics- Well detailed, smoothly animated, nice variety in objects/enemies, diverse use of colors (some areas are duller, some are noticeably more vibrant), and in general, they show that a lot of attention was given to even little things. It does get tough to see the bullets at times, but that's what the Dreamcast mode is for. There's also a good selection of stages, making sure the game doesn't suffer from a Halo-like "Wasn't I just here?"-syndrome.

Music- Very nice. Some tunes are more ambient, while others carry a heavier beat. It's a nice variety of music that's well produced. Hopefully NGDev Team will make MP3s available for it on their website at some point, since the LE is no longer to be made (160kb/s would be nice guys ).

Controls- They take a bit of getting used to, but they're nothing that can't be overcome with practice. The orb you use as a bit touchy (it moves pretty quick), but it's not uncontrollable. Tapping will be your friend here. Also, autofire isn't very quick, which makes tapping the fire button yourself a better option. As a result, I found no problems with the "AXB" setup. Plus, since your ship doesn't have an insane rate of fire, getting a thumb cramp hasn't been a big issue (no sense pounding the button like hell when the ship only fires so fast). Otherwise, your ship moves and fires smoothly without any noticeable problems, and deaths have been due to lack of practice, not control issues (or hit box ones either).

Challenge- Holy shit is this game tough. Thus far, I've managed to get through the first stage without dying, and get a ways into the second stage... on "Easy". "Normal"s rough, and I haven't gotten up the guts to try "Hard" yet.


I'd give the game around an 84%. It has a few rough edges, but there's a lot in the game to make up for them. It's refreshing as hell to see someone finally make a horizontal shmup, and give the whole Vertical area a rest. It's also nice to see a shmup focus more on the R-Type-like strategies, and not simply rely on the "throw 10,000 bullets at the player" deal. It's a refreshing and welcome change of pace that's well made, and worth the $40 price tag.

[Strider77]

^^---BEHOLD!!!! a horizontal fan speaks...............

[icepick]

It's good to see more impressions of this game. Pickings are slim when it comes to horizontal shooting games on the DC, so I'm pretty sure that I'll be keen on playing it. It'd be nice if the LE didn't have to be delayed, but I'm sure that it will be worth it.

With the awkward distance between DC buttons, being able to map the orb's rotation to the triggers would have been nice.

Isn't the default configuration for the left- and right-rotate to be assigned to the L and R triggers?

Just press "X" to shoot, "R-Trigger" to rotate clockwise and "L-Trigger" to rotate anticlockwise.

[The Coop]

^^---BEHOLD!!!! a horizontal fan speaks...............

It's good to see more impressions of this game. Pickings are slim when it comes to horizontal shooting games on the DC, so I'm pretty sure that I'll be keen on playing it. It'd be nice if the LE didn't have to be delayed, but I'm sure that it will be worth it.

With the awkward distance between DC buttons, being able to map the orb's rotation to the triggers would have been nice.

Isn't the default configuration for the left- and right-rotate to be assigned to the L and R triggers?

Just press "X" to shoot, "R-Trigger" to rotate clockwise and "L-Trigger" to rotate anticlockwise.

It is indeed, icepick. I forgot to mention that.

[Arvandor]

Pickings are slim when it comes to horizontal shooting games on the DC

Border Down is more than enough horizontal shooter for the Dreamcast -_^ It's good enough to render most other horis totally null and void. Exceptions go out to a large majority of cute 'em ups, Gradius 5, and Hyper Duel. I'll give Darius Gaiden props too, but my biggest pet peeve in shooters is getting screwed when you die, and it's worse in DG than in any other shoot I've EVER PLAYED!#%!$#^

Thinking of which... How screwed are you in Last Hope when you die? Is it pretty bad?

Also, if you're sick of the "bullet hell, donmaku, geometric snowstorm of death, etc" style verts, may I suggest Batsugun on normal mode, Game Tengoku, Ikaruga, a Strikers game, Soukyugurentai, Zero Gunner 2, Shienryu, or something =P

[The Coop]

Thinking of which... How screwed are you in Last Hope when you die? Is it pretty bad?

Not really. You get your orb back pretty quickly, even if you die at a boss. You might not get a speed up or anything, but you get the orb back (at least on stage one anyway).

Also, if you're sick of the "bullet hell, donmaku, geometric snowstorm of death, etc" style verts, may I suggest Batsugun on normal mode, Game Tengoku, Ikaruga, a Strikers game, Soukyugurentai, Zero Gunner 2, Shienryu, or something =P

Oh, believe me... I have plenty of non-bullet hell shmups of the vertical variety. M.U.S.H.A., Raiden, Raiden II, Radiant Silvergun, Ikaruga, Strikers 1945, Strikers 1945 II, good ol' "Soukyu", Zero Gunner 2, a bunch of others by Compile, Capcom, Technosoft and God only knows who else... I have plenty 8bit, 16bit and 32bit verts that don't go apeshit on you with the bullets. But after seeing, playing and reading about a lot more verts and bullet happy verts than horizontal shmups since my arrival here, I'm happy to see something different come out, and felt the need to point that out

[Arvandor]

Ah, well I can understand that. Horizontal shooters do seem to almost be a niche within a niche, as they aren't nearly as loved as the verts even amongst shmupers. I know I'm not a big fan of horis, but even I like some of 'em ^_^

[tassian]

Some technical aspects that I like about the DC version: it supports VGA and you can select either full 240p or 240p with scanlines which really gives you that genuine arcade feeling. I think that, despite the weeknesses of the game, this is quite a nice feature together with the VM support. I must agree though, that the limited key configuration is really bad. I hate the fact that the preset for the joypad (firing with A, rotating the orb with L and R) is superior to any of the presets for the DC arcade stick. Apart from that, the R-Type-iesque reset to a save point after dying just sucks, especially when you play on normal or hard mode. Still, this game has some je-ne-sais-quoi.

[Klatrymadon]

I thought more of you chaps would be enjoying it! Oh well. I'm hooked at the moment. I'm finding it entirely learnable and fair, with clever attack waves and appropriately-placed checkpoints, although I do concede that your possible paths through each section of the game are relatively few in number (making this a very unattractive title to those averse to shmups of the "100% memorization" variety). It feels like a game that's entirely worth my time, and worth learning inside out.

I find myself using the 'force' in a perhaps not-entirely-intended way, however. Instead of moving it on-the-fly to swat away bullets, I tend to have it in a set position for each section of the game I've committed to memory (partly because it's actually a bit too unweildy to use in split-second situations). Wouldn't say this is a wholly negative thing, though. My only real complaint is that the weapons aren't very satisfying to use!

[ROBOTRON]

Robotron from the Detroit area, is that *you*? Dude! It's Aron! How the heck *are* you, man? I was just writing on a forum yesterday about our collective experience playing Battle Garegga on the Saturn. Good to see you here, my friend!

I think comparing a vert to a hori in terms of gameplay is awfully strange, though. I own Under Defeat, and while it's a nice vert, I'd much rather play Border Down, which is a hori, and you can guess that that'd be my preference.

I've been looking for some Last Hope opinions, though, so I'm glad you chimed in here. Wow. I'm just glad to know you're still into shooters. I'm still working on trying to get my PSP to do emulation! Smile

Its me, dude. Check your PMS.

(BTW Aron, when I compared this to "Under Defeat" I meant "fun factor" mostly..."gameplaywise" was a bad word choice. I meant picking it up and playing and becoming addicted to it right away. This game had me cursing and wanting to throw the controller at the tv screen from jump street).

Ok, back to LH. I've played this 2 days now and can honestly say it is flawed...badly. However, it is eye candy and the music rocks. Playing it is another story...I love hori's but this one is tough to like, I find the control frustrating and the play mechanics nearly impossible...its almost as frustrating as Deep Blue for TG-16...

Unrealistic checkpoints that make it nearly impossible to continue should you die and lose your weaponry. Moving the option around (correctly) with the trigger button is awkward and funky. Inadequate firepower to handle the hoards of enemies coming at you...I don't care how many weapons you find.

So far I rate the game as follows (out of 10):

Graphics: 7/10
Music: 8/10
Gameplay: 4/10
Control: 3/10

overall: 5/10

- booooo!

[Ceph]

So far I rate the game as follows (out of 10):

Graphics: 7/10
Music: 8/10
Gameplay: 4/10
Control: 3/10

overall: 5/10

- booooo!

Ouch!! Did you really play the same game as CIT and The Coop ?

I hope I'll enjoy it a little more than that.
(Once I finally get my LE...)

[Klatrymadon]

It's brilliant, Ceph. Don't let these grumps put a damper on your experience.

Actually, I can see why people don't like the controls - until you've memorized the first level, your craft feels so cripplingly slow that you half-suspect it isn't actually up to the task! I'd say the rotation buttons should have been reversed, too. Pressing R makes it go anti-clockwise, which feels quite unnatural to me. Fortunately, you quickly adapt to this nonsense and start enjoying the game on its own terms, and, again, it becomes entirely manageable.

[ROBOTRON]

It's brilliant, Ceph. Don't let these grumps put a damper on your experience.

Actually, I can see why people don't like the controls - until you've memorized the first level, your craft feels so cripplingly slow that you half-suspect it isn't actually up to the task! I'd say the rotation buttons should have been reversed, too. Pressing R makes it go anti-clockwise, which feels quite unnatural to me. Fortunately, you quickly adapt to this nonsense and start enjoying the game on its own terms, and, again, it becomes entirely manageable.

lol...the key words are "so far"...I've only had the game 2 days...I thought I made that clear.

These are first impressions.

I realize that my personal ratings are much different from the norm...after all I hated Ikaruga and Battle Garega soon after buying them. I believe the general population here (here at shmup.org) swears by them.

Go figure.

[Klatrymadon]

Don't worry mate, I wasn't having a pop at anyone.

I've only spent a few hours on it myself. It's definitely one of the hardest games of the last decade, but for me that's not down to any kind of poor design, and it feels wonderfully rewarding to nail each set-piece.

[ROBOTRON]

Don't worry mate, I wasn't having a pop at anyone.

I've only spent a few hours on it myself. It's definitely one of the hardest games of the last decade, but for me that's not down to any kind of poor design, and it feels wonderfully rewarding to nail each set-piece.

Ok... its cool.

I am a collector of shmups because I love the genre so. I will support "Last Hope" (by buying it) and any other shmup I can get my hands on.

[SkylineR32]

I was put off by two factors, one is that it's a hori and two, it's a homebrew and I've been les than impressed with the DC homebrews I'd bought in the past.

Still, it's a new DC shooter which means I have to buy it

Hopefully mine will arrive today.

[yojo!]

Level 2 has Rtype II written all over it. Once you stop using autofire and tap on the fire button instead the game becomes more playable IMO. The game is great w/ an awesome soundtrack.

[ROBOTRON]

Those of you thinking of buying this game, here is the way the standard version was shipped:

(play asia) sticker
jewel case
insert