No, at least Exelica doesn't. I will admit that Last Hope can be some bitter medicine to swallow from time to time. I think Last Hope is like coffee: you must aquire a taste for it. As for Karous, I guess we will all know in about two weeks.
Exelica, on the the other hand, is a far more polished product in comparison. I think I like it almost as much as Under Defeat and Border Down--perhaps moreso once I have an opportunity to play it further. Some people are thrown off by the capture dynamic, but I think it adds an extra degree of strategy (what to grab and when/if to fling it) and skill (timing the spin and throw for the correct trajectory) to the game.
I was a bit unhappy that the poster was not in the SegaDirect LE edition of Trigger Heart Exelica listed at Play-Asia (since that's the one I pre-ordered). It seems that over the weekend, they updated the product info for both the LE/Normal SegaDirect edition and shows that the poster is now included.
"When a madman appears thoroughly sane, indeed, it is high time to put him in a strait-jacket."
Edgar A. Poe
Ceph wrote:Something strange happened to me just now: I fought the first boss which this time seemed to have more formations than usual. After it was finally defeated, another boss appeared, that small red clad guy from the intro and I had to fight him. I have no idea what triggered this event. Maybe it has something to do with not using any bombs or losing any lives during the entire level until after the first boss?
EDIT: I just used a bomb during the boss fight and the red guy still appeared. Maybe it has to with having more than 10,000,000 points after the first boss. The first time I had around 13 Million, the second time 15.
She always appears in story mode boss battles it seems. And not just the first battle, but also the second and third. IIRC, she didn't appear in the fourth, but maybe that has something to do with me continuing at that point.
Ganelon wrote:Also, you didn't realize that girl was a girl?
I haven't played the story mode yet, and from the face alone it could be both (I thought it was a boy; the red clothes and blond hair probably made me think of Gundam's Char). And we've seen quite a number of androgynous looking male anime characters over the years...
Exelica, on the the other hand, is a far more polished product in comparison.
I don't know if I would say "polished". It's ugly... real ugly. But underneath there's a pretty fun scoring system if you can get over that whole "swinging" business... which some people can't.
Karasu is a dark Radirgy w/ a power-up system.
RegalSin wrote:New PowerPuff Girls. They all have evil pornstart eyelashes.
Exelica, on the the other hand, is a far more polished product in comparison.
I don't know if I would say "polished". It's ugly... real ugly. But underneath there's a pretty fun scoring system if you can get over that whole "swinging" business... which some people can't.
Karasu is a dark Radirgy w/ a power-up system.
Ah, let me qualify that statement! It's more polished than Last Hope, which ultimately lacks any sense of balance. I agree that the scoring system is fun--in fact, that is what keeps me playing.
My copy arrived from play-asia today, much quicker than expected since I opted for the hobo shipping method. Graphics could generally use more detail (especially the backgrounds - and more colour too!), but it plays really well and sounds good.
I hung out with a friend last night and we put a few hours into Triggerheart! The graphics look like G-Net or something, but the game is a lot of fun so far. I've been wondering though how much depth it really has-- any expert players have any insight?
Depth in what sense? It wouldn't be any trouble to have a clear score of 1/10th or less of the current WR. You have to be able to medal well (and then not die) to be able to see all of the boss forms, and to earn the optional boss encounters.
Anyone else playing arrange mode? I can't decide if the last section of Level 4 is easier or harder now...
yesterday was another happy mail day for me when unexpectedly early Triggerheart dropped in.
dreamcast-purist will be disappointed to know that even the standard edition that i have comes in a dvd-sized box, just like Under Defeat did.
once the game is loaded you are presented with a nice, yet aimless little intro movie that hardly tells anything of the game. then again, this is a shooter so who cares about the story! though it does show our kind of skimpy dressed heroines wearing big mecha suits! Wink the art style of the girls reminds me a bit of Rockman ZX.
the simple yet effective system menu is full of different game and configuration modes however the latter is flawed in a rather significant way. being a vertical shmup the game is meant to be played in tate-mode yet, like Ikaruga, Triggerheart only supports tate-left. this can be very frustrating if, for one reason or another you can not rotate your screen unto it's right-side. besides that the game gives you the choice to have it displayed in the original arcade resolution or the tv resolution. it also gives you, independently from the games resolution, control over whether or not you want the HUD to be displayed in TV or Arcade position. these are kind of generous features me thinks.
other than that you can do usual stuff like button configuration, mono/stereo sound and wallpaper on/off (for if you are playing in yoko-mode). on top of that it also allows you to turn the tutorial at the beginning of the game on or off and enable/disable auto swing (which is the autofire of this game)...
but the gameplay is where the game gets interesting. Triggerheart uses 3 buttons, shoot, bomb and control. the first two are rather obvious but the control is what makes Triggerheart stand out from the rest. with it you shoot an anchor that can hook in to an enemy. if you hooked yourself an airborne enemy then you can pull it towards you and use it as a shield until the enemy's energy runs out and it explodes (taking other enemies in it's vicinity with it). touching other enemies or their bullets with your newly acquired shield will make them die and spawn gold objects.
not only can you use the hooked airborne enemy as a shield you can also swing him around and throw him towards other enemies. if you hit a group of enemies that way a lot more gold nuggets will appear. with auto-swing off the throwing of enemies will take some getting used to. even with auto-swing on it may take a few tries before you develop a feel to when to let the enemy go to throw it in the direction you want it to go. btw: auto-swing on means that the moment you grab an enemy you will instantly start to rotate him so you can throw him in a direction. whether you swing him left or right depends on what auto-swing option you've chosen in the option menu. don't think there is much of a difference other than personal preference. auto-swing is definitively faster at spinning the enemy around than i am.
when you're hooked up to a ground enemy you can not pull it towards you, use it as a shield nor toss it towards other enemies however you can use it as an anchor point. the anchor point allows you to very significantly change the angle/direction of your fire. i think this could be especially tactical for Cruel Tear, the 2nd girl with the straight shot. the first girl named Excelica has a spread shot but that weapon seems to shoot bullets a bit too happy and enthusiastically all over the screen for my liking.
the gold nuggets that i mentioned earlier seems to be part of the multiplier. as long as you hold down the fire button the gold nuggets will slowly drift towards the bottom of the screen where they will disappear. at the moment you let go of your fire button all the gold nuggets on screen will be drawn towards the player. the collected gold will be added to two meters. one is, i think, a meter that shows how many gold you've collected and the other is the multiplier. the trick is that the longer the gold nuggets are on screen before being drawn towards the player the larger they grow. the larger the more they add to the multiplier, i think. this may make for some interesting strategic playing as keeping your shot button pressed in order to make the coins grow (while they are drifting towards the oblivion of off-screen) also keeps your fire going which will destroy enemies that you actually may need to capture to use as shield or toss at bigger enemies.
besides the arcade mode Triggerheart also comes with a story mode, arrange mode and practice mode. i haven't really explored the arcade mode enough to tell you about the differences between various modes but there are some things i did notice already.
in story mode the game is interrupted every once in a while by a very nicely drawn manga picture accompanied by a piece of written text and spoken voice, not unlike in Shikigami no shiro. the voice is only heard once but the text remains on screen until the player clicks it away. very usefull for those of us who are not very fluent in japanese yet but would actually like to read the story. the enemy patterns seem different and first stage definitively has a different boss compared to arcade mode.
arrange mode, well i can't tell much about other than that it's the only game mode that doesn't give you unlimited credits. in fact it only gives you a single credit. there are probably more differences but i don't know them yet.
practice mode seems to be designed for arcade mode. it allows you to start in whatever stage you want and i think you can play onwards from that stage until the end (not sure that's actually true). just like in arcade & story mode it also gives you unlimited credit but it probably will not save your high score. Rolling Eyes
the music of the game is very midi! some of the music is actually quite cool and some of it sounds very familiar but sadly most of it sounds very cheesy.
as a way of closing off i wanted to say that graphically Triggerheart is far from impressive but gameplay-wise it feels fresh & renewing (and fun too).
pro's:
+ when un-pausing the game it will show a countdown before continueing (like in the EPSgaluda port).
+ tutorial on/off.
+ both tv and arcade resolution are in the game.
+ fast scrolling letters in the high score table.
+ backgrounds in the menu change.
+ cool bombing animation that potentially even allows you to pick up items you otherwise might miss.
+ throwing enemies is fun.
+ cool / cute VMU animation as well as cool manga drawings on screen and in the menu's.
+ the enemy, a skimpy dressed girl dressed in a red mecha suit looks quite hot. Wink
cons:
- very heavy disk reading (think it pust quite a strain on your DC).
- only tate-left support!
- music is very midi!
- graphic & color palettes aren't the greatest but it does look happy & all.
undecided:
± unlimited credits. on one hand it allows you to play through the game on other hand it does make credit feeding very easy.
± dramatic explosions in slow motion like only a dreamcast can do.
± default high scores are low.
eretsua wrote:dreamcast-purist will be disappointed to know that even the standard edition that i have comes in a dvd-sized box, just like Under Defeat did.
Not sure how the box changes the gameplay... see my comments in the "do you collect or play?" poll/thread.
eretsua wrote:± unlimited credits. on one hand it allows you to play through the game on other hand it does make credit feeding very easy.
I heard about this thing once called "self control". Apparently it was wiped out after WW2, or so it seems from comments like these.
elvis wrote:I heard about this thing once called "self control". Apparently it was wiped out after WW2, or so it seems from comments like these.
lol, I was trying to explain this concept on some other forum to people playing Exelica and complaining about the unlimited credits, but they weren't getting it and so I gave up.
eretsua wrote:dreamcast-purist will be disappointed to know that even the standard edition that i have comes in a dvd-sized box, just like Under Defeat did.
Not sure how the box changes the gameplay... see my comments in the "do you collect or play?" poll/thread.
of course the box has no influence on the gameplay. however, and not wanting to transplant your play vs. collect thread to this thread, i buy games for 95+% for their gameplay but i do like some nice packaging with it. personally i don’t like dvd-cases one bit. don’t like them for games and i don’t like them for movies. furthermore, there was a lot of complaining going one when Under Defeat was released in a dvd case. and i can, for a great part agree with those complaining. if you’ve got a whole bunch of dc games all coming in a standard jewel case and suddenly you have a small number of games that come in different packaging than that can feel quite frustrating if you’re keen on storing them all together or like homogeneous packaging.
elvis wrote:
eretsua wrote:± unlimited credits. on one hand it allows you to play through the game on other hand it does make credit feeding very easy.
I heard about this thing once called "self control". Apparently it was wiped out after WW2, or so it seems from comments like these.
i am familiar with the concept of self control, yes. and if you extrapolate your argument you might as well give the player unlimited lives and/or unlimited bombs as you have self control and will know when it becomes unfair to play on. i’m not saying that having unlimited credit is a bad thing per se, not at all, but when getting into a new shooter it can be very hard to keep track whether you’ve used 3 or 4 credits already during the heat of the battle. this may be relevant if you want to give yourself 3 credits to get through the game. if you’re allowing yourself only a single credit each turn than unlimited credits by default is no problem what so ever. though i would prefer that you can just set the amount of credits you want in the option menu. i would like to point out that i listed the unlimited credits issue not as a pro or con but as an undecided point.
eretsua wrote:of course the box has no influence on the gameplay. however, and not wanting to transplant your play vs. collect thread to this thread, i buy games for 95+% for their gameplay but i do like some nice packaging with it. personally i don’t like dvd-cases one bit. don’t like them for games and i don’t like them for movies. furthermore, there was a lot of complaining going one when Under Defeat was released in a dvd case. and i can, for a great part agree with those complaining. if you’ve got a whole bunch of dc games all coming in a standard jewel case and suddenly you have a small number of games that come in different packaging than that can feel quite frustrating if you’re keen on storing them all together or like homogeneous packaging.
As opposed to the number of DC games released in dual cases or the infamous SOJ wide case (and I'm not even touching on the huge Euro DC cases)? I really don't see how the packaging is frustrating in any manner.
As someone who organizes their collection by case-type (which is the most efficient way, given the design of my game cabinets), I love having DC games sharing shelf space with PS2 and GC games.
eretsua does a massive write-up on the overall package, but of course...... let's nit-pick one thing (which we then claim to be not important) to derail the thread into an argument...
welcome to shmups.com !
a dvd-case game may or may not be important to you. that doesn't mean it wont be important information to someone.
bloodflowers wrote:I'm slowly weaning myself off autospin, and starting to enjoy it even more.
You don't have as much control over captured enemies as you do with the default setting. It just takes some getting used to... I'm still coming to grips with timing the release correctly so that I actually toss the enemy where I want it to go (instead of off the side of the screen somewhere).
As opposed to the number of DC games released in dual cases or the infamous SOJ wide case (and I'm not even touching on the huge Euro DC cases)? I really don't see how the packaging is frustrating in any manner.
Those cases fit right along side the other CD cases just fine and don't look odd. I deal with the dvd cases but would rather them come in a CD case also. Under Defeat along with Segaga LE are like that on my shelf, i have to lay them on their side to be along with the DC games. Not a HUGE deal to me, but I'd like to have games in regular old CD cases again.
Damn Tim, you know there are quite a few Americans out there who still lives in tents due to this shitty economy, and you're dropping loads on a single game which only last 20 min. Do you think it's fair? How much did you spend this time?
I don't mind the DVD cases either. Yes, it would be nice to have allm y DC games conform to the CD case standard and I do enjoy spine cards. I think Trigger Heart and Karous/Crow bring us up to 4 official DC games with DVD cases.
Reluctant Hero wrote:I don't mind the DVD cases either. Yes, it would be nice to have allm y DC games conform to the CD case standard and I do enjoy spine cards. I think Trigger Heart and Karous/Crow bring us up to 4 official DC games with DVD cases.
Reluctant Hero wrote:I don't mind the DVD cases either. Yes, it would be nice to have allm y DC games conform to the CD case standard and I do enjoy spine cards. I think Trigger Heart and Karous/Crow bring us up to 4 official DC games with DVD cases.
Music is very oldschool, definitely has that late80's~early90's arcade feel. Probably one of the best VGM-styled soundtracks I've heard in a while, really matches the pace of the game. People who don't like VGM as a genre will absolutely hate it... it's not cinematic, it's not techno-y, it's very much 16-bit in origin.
Reluctant Hero wrote:Anyways, my Tigger Heart is at the post office now and I'll be picking it on my lunch. I can't wait play it tonight!
Last edited by nZero on Thu Mar 01, 2007 1:57 am, edited 1 time in total.
Segaga's boxed set came in a DVD style case... it's a bit thicker actually.
Damn Tim, you know there are quite a few Americans out there who still lives in tents due to this shitty economy, and you're dropping loads on a single game which only last 20 min. Do you think it's fair? How much did you spend this time?
DVD cases are ugly and unwieldy!
CD cases are fairly inefficient for storage, though something can be said for making them thick enough to print a title on the side....
DVD cases however, seriously max out the inefficiency gauge with no reasonable excuse whatsoever!
i like pretty boxes, and i like them small.
DVD cases just scream "BUY ME I'M BIG".
so yeah, i'm with the haters on this one, for once.
i wish there were more things that fit in a GameCube game case....
DVD cases also inevitably destroy manuals with their pins roughing up the paper and the ability for the right-side edge to get easily damaged by the innermost ring of the CD holder. I haven't seen a single manual that could be considered mint condition from any of the games I bought factory sealed.
