New shmup for DS!!!

ARCADIA · Post by **ARCADIA** » Sat Apr 14, 2007 8:31 pm

Cosmos X2

shinsage · Post by **shinsage** » Sat Apr 14, 2007 8:39 pm

Yup.
Definitely a western shooter.

Lawfer · Post by **Lawfer** » Sun Apr 15, 2007 12:36 am

... is that even legal?

SFKhoa · Post by **SFKhoa** » Sun Apr 15, 2007 12:40 am

Lawfer wrote:... is that even legal?

Obviously, since it's going to be an official DS game.

Lawfer · Post by **Lawfer** » Sun Apr 15, 2007 12:44 am

SFKhoa wrote:
Lawfer wrote:... is that even legal?
Obviously, since it's going to be an official DS game.

That's not really what I meant

SFKhoa · Post by **SFKhoa** » Sun Apr 15, 2007 12:54 am

You mean the fact that they're usually bad in general? I agree.

ccovell · Post by **ccovell** » Sun Apr 15, 2007 1:08 am

Oh, dear. Doesn't look too promising... the screen doesn't even look like it scrolls, for chrissakes!

Pixel_Outlaw · Post by **Pixel_Outlaw** » Sun Apr 15, 2007 3:03 am

I love my country but damn Americans as a whole just don't"get it". Why oh why are we in such a hurry to overcomplicate games? They are either clone games or they are ideas that are too complex in nature or a bit of both, aka a overcomplicated clone game. I don't like the need for realism either. I play shmups to escape reality not live a different version of it.

The DS is just another excuse for western developers to be lazy and not make sprites the traditional way with attention to detail and good use of a limited palette. It's just throw it in photoshop and smudge the hell outta it.

BrianC · Post by **BrianC** » Sun Apr 15, 2007 3:09 am

Did you know these guys did homebrew before announcing DS games? Their homebrew roots definitely show in those screens.

Edit: I was a bit confused because they are publishing the DS Cool Herders, which was originally a DC homebrew game, but they appear to be the publisher of that one, not the developer.

theevilfunkster · Post by **theevilfunkster** » Sun Apr 15, 2007 3:23 am

If you go to the developers website you just get one page with "Coming in 2007 for the Nintendo DS"
http://saturninegames.com/

Look in Googles cache of the site and it shows that it was originally for the GBA, all the screenshots are dead though.
http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:Ms0p ... =firefox-a

Skyknight · Post by **Skyknight** » Sun Apr 15, 2007 3:29 am

I'm wondering what they mean by "change alignment". For some reason, it reminds me of a gimmick I came up with for a possible G-Darius sequel (i.e. between that and Darius). Basically, your ship installed two "elements" that affected how your weapons act when powered up...

(Still using the Chinese elements for these...)

Wood: Both shot and bomb create secondary explosions.
Fire: Shot pierces foes (i.e. exactly like the G-Darius shot), bomb reflects off of solid surfaces and enemies a limited number of times.
Earth: No special quality, but does more damage.
Metal: Shot gains an extra gun that shoots in the direction opposite your motion, bombs track along solid surfaces.
Water: Shot is a vulcan, bombs explode after a fixed distance (whether or not they hit something) into clouds of bullet-burning chaff.

The four available ships all had one element other than earth innate. The nature of that innate element and the second element (i.e. which created which, or which dominated which) determined your speed and shield capacity (the slower your ship, the better your shields; a creation relationship tended to better shields, a domination relationship to better speed).

The important point to alignment shift is that at any time, your shot acted according to one element, your bomb to another. You would have a button dedicated to instantly swapping elements as the situation required (e.g. if you had metal and wood, you might want metal shot/wood bomb for when surrounded, then swap to wood shot/metal bomb if dealing with ground enemies you wanted to keep your distance from). I'm wondering if the alignment shift is something similar to this...

sfried · Post by **sfried** » Sun Apr 15, 2007 4:22 am

Lawfer wrote:... is that even legal?

If it's Euromade, maybe.

Shin'En has been somewhat competent at making good shmups.

But this is a Yank shmup, so I'll pass. (Although I'll admit Raptor: Call of the Shadows was good for its time)

Pixel_Outlaw wrote:I love my country but damn Americans as a whole just don't"get it"...

The DS is just another excuse for western developers to be lazy and not make sprites the traditional way with attention to detail and good use of a limited palette. It's just throw it in photoshop and smudge the hell outta it.

If you think Germany, France, and Britain aren't western countries that have released some passabley good shmups, I suggest you do some research.

Granted, they aren't as good as their Japanese counterparts, but their shmup scene has been around longer and they've been starting to slowly grasp the fundamentals of what makes a solid shooter.

Lawfer · Post by **Lawfer** » Sun Apr 15, 2007 4:59 am

sfried wrote:If it's Euromade, maybe.

Shin'En has been somewhat competent at making good shmups.

Nanostray wasn't that bad considering it's not a japanese shmup, but honestly I didn't really liked it that much.

I mean lol you have 2 shooters on a portable console, which one would you go for? Nanostray on the DS or Star Soldier on the PSP? The answer if pretty clear to me.

shinsage · Post by **shinsage** » Sun Apr 15, 2007 5:11 am

I hate sounding like some Japanophile elitist, but seriously, American devs are so fucking uncreative it's embarrassing..Pixel hit the nail on the head.

Never_Scurred · Post by **Never_Scurred** » Sun Apr 15, 2007 5:20 am

shinsage wrote:I hate sounding like some Japanophile elitist, but seriously, American devs are so fucking uncreative it's embarrassing..Pixel hit the nail on the head.

Im pretty sure that somewhere on the internet, a japanese gamer is saying the same thing about Japanese devs....

BrianC · Post by **BrianC** » Sun Apr 15, 2007 6:11 am

Lawfer wrote: I mean lol you have 2 shooters on a portable console, which one would you go for? Nanostray on the DS or Star Soldier on the PSP? The answer if pretty clear to me.

Lol? The answer is not all that clear, not between those two. I usually hear that Star Soldier is average, though it does sound interesting. I personally like Nanostray quite a bit, despite having to use the touch screen. Also, the invisible boundary thing didn't bother me much. It takes some getting used too, but I like how it makes it so you have to use the attract thing to get some of the blue coins.

The only other original shmup I can think of for PSP is that Sengoku Cannon game. However, it does have a ton of ported shmups in collections, including 4 Konami collections dedicated only to shmups. Currently, the DS only has a couple collections, an Atari one that I heard is very bad (with some shmupish games), and an excellent Konami collection with some shmups like Twinbee, Scramble, Time Pilot, and Gradius.

Two of the games in the Konami collection are also in the PSP collections, but the DS version has both the alternate Nemesis version with higher difficulty and power up enemies at death and the original Gradius (not sure if the PSP rev has this or not) and the two player mode intact for Twinbee/RainbowBell (I heard, for some odd reason, the Konami PSP collections are missing 2p. Especially puzzling for Twinbee and Salamander since they were from the same company that did the DS Konami Collection, M2). The PSP has ports of the later games like Twinbee Yahoo and Gradius Gaiden and some nice bonuses in a couple of the collections like a new remake of the GB b/w Twinbee Da!! and new ports of the MSX Gradius 2 and Parodius with touched up graphics and improved scrolling, though.

louisg · Post by **louisg** » Sun Apr 15, 2007 7:18 am

Never_Scurred wrote:
shinsage wrote:I hate sounding like some Japanophile elitist, but seriously, American devs are so fucking uncreative it's embarrassing..Pixel hit the nail on the head.
Im pretty sure that somewhere on the internet, a japanese gamer is saying the same thing about Japanese devs....

I think one huge difference is that Japan still has an arcade scene. One great thing about arcade games is that they tend towards being pure games (games appreciated as a set of fair rules and challenges), whereas console/pc games tend towards being cinema-fests (games appreciated as movies). I'm not going to pre-emptively dis this new game though. Additionally, I'm sure a lot of Americans that hang around shmups.com could be capable of "getting it" and designing a mean game =)

ARCADIA · Post by **ARCADIA** » Sun Apr 15, 2007 8:13 am

Too sad to say, Japanese companies never made 2D shmup for DS yet!!!

2 screen is just a gimmick, they don't need to care too much about it. Like Miyamoto said that before.

Lawfer · Post by **Lawfer** » Sun Apr 15, 2007 8:22 am

BrianC wrote:Lol? The answer is not all that clear, not between those two. I usually hear that Star Soldier is average, though it does sound interesting. I personally like Nanostray quite a bit, despite having to use the touch screen. Also, the invisible boundary thing didn't bother me much. It takes some getting used too, but I like how it makes it so you have to use the attract thing to get some of the blue coins.

The only other original shmup I can think of for PSP is that Sengoku Cannon game. However, it does have a ton of ported shmups in collections, including 4 Konami collections dedicated only to shmups. Currently, the DS only has a couple collections, an Atari one that I heard is very bad (with some shmupish games), and an excellent Konami collection with some shmups like Twinbee, Scramble, Time Pilot, and Gradius.

Two of the games in the Konami collection are also in the PSP collections, but the DS version has both the alternate Nemesis version with higher difficulty and power up enemies at death and the original Gradius (not sure if the PSP rev has this or not) and the two player mode intact for Twinbee/RainbowBell (I heard, for some odd reason, the Konami PSP collections are missing 2p. Especially puzzling for Twinbee and Salamander since they were from the same company that did the DS Konami Collection, M2). The PSP has ports of the later games like Twinbee Yahoo and Gradius Gaiden and some nice bonuses in a couple of the collections like a new remake of the GB b/w Twinbee Da!! and new ports of the MSX Gradius 2 and Parodius with touched up graphics and improved scrolling, though.

Star Soldier last boss will blow your mind off with a great music track at that.

Can't say the same about that ugly modeled robotic medusa head in Nanostray...

Hopefully they will learn from their mistake of the first and make Nanostray 2 excellent.

Honestly the only Western shmup I really love is Sigma Star Saga, that was really a great game.

Never_Scurred wrote:Im pretty sure that somewhere on the internet, a japanese gamer is saying the same thing about Japanese devs....

Link or it didn't happen!

A question did anyone play Star Soldier: Vanishing Earth on N64? If so how is it?

sfried · Post by **sfried** » Sun Apr 15, 2007 2:20 pm

louisg wrote:
Never_Scurred wrote:
shinsage wrote:I hate sounding like some Japanophile elitist, but seriously, American devs are so fucking uncreative it's embarrassing..Pixel hit the nail on the head.
Im pretty sure that somewhere on the internet, a japanese gamer is saying the same thing about Japanese devs....
I think one huge difference is that Japan still has an arcade scene. One great thing about arcade games is that they tend towards being pure games (games appreciated as a set of fair rules and challenges), whereas console/pc games tend towards being cinema-fests (games appreciated as movies). I'm not going to pre-emptively dis this new game though. Additionally, I'm sure a lot of Americans that hang around shmups.com could be capable of "getting it" and designing a mean game =)

I think people don't realize there is a Euro scene, which is quite different from the Americas.

Super Laydock · Post by **Super Laydock** » Mon Apr 16, 2007 12:58 pm

This looks terrible.

Even more so after just seeing that Nanostray 2 trailer.

JBC · Post by **JBC** » Mon Apr 16, 2007 1:29 pm

Ugh... Well, at least we'll have something new to make fun of.

Lawfer · Post by **Lawfer** » Mon Apr 16, 2007 1:39 pm

circuitface wrote:Ugh... Well, at least we'll have something new to make fun of.

That and probably Broken Thunder in a couple weeks (I hope not though).

Fenrir · Post by **Fenrir** » Mon Apr 16, 2007 3:29 pm

The bottom screen looks seriously fucked up, but the top screen could be nice. Now, if only they decided to DROP THE DAMN RENDERED STUFF OFF... it would be great. Can't stand it. They ruined X2, they'll ruin this one as well.

EDIT
this one is "X2" as well... could be the name?

EDIT2
Western developers made awfully great shmups in the past, considering how scarce the public reaction was. I won't even begin listing the C64-Amy shmups ;P