Broken Thunder pics

[P_HAT]

how can a game company release a game like this in 2007...

simply, they just wants our money.

[Super Laydock]

how can a game company release a game like this in 2007...

Italicized the crucial word that makes this a superfluous question.

With EMS being fast and all, I hope either Ghegs or Gameoverdude will receive their copy tomorrow and can post some first hand impressions.

I certainly hope my 40 bucks didn´t go down the drain here*...though I fear the worst after watching the vids a few times more.


*now if only it had redbook audio I´d be already happy

[shinsage]

haha, totally called it. Shoulda made a bet with circuitface.

It reminds me of Super Earth Defense Force, the SNES version. Very much a bare bones package, except it's prolly nowhere near as hard.

[Specineff]

I don't think a patch will be enough to fix this train wreck.

How about a patch to put over your eyes?

Yarr, ye might be correct matey. Shiver me timbers and all that.

[pixelcorps]

how can a game company release a game like this in 2007...

simply, they just wants our money.

it's hardly a company, it's just a doujin circle, meaning maybe 2 or 3 young wannabe's trying to make a game, judging by the look of this game, maybe one person.

the price is tagged as "open price" so blame himeya for the cost.

while it's still a travesty of a game, it's still just a fan made game.

[Varuga]

Man I am so glad I missed out on preordering this..although I guess I will download a pegleg copy once it gets out there just for the morbid curiousity factor.

[icepick]

I certainly hope my 40 bucks didn´t go down the drain here*...though I fear the worst after watching the vids a few times more.

Cheer up S.L.; I will totally buy yours from you if you really don't like it! Then you can put the funds aside for... Laster Hope, or Last Hope Ever, or however they want to call it.

(LHE: TBA 2020~)

You know; If I buy BT off you, and someone buys it off me, and so on, then eventually 20 people will have gotten to try it for the price of a rental... except the last person gets to keep it.

I should probably watch the stage one video. Wait, I still haven't seen Pirate1019's new video. I'll watch that first.

[The Coop]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsCgCT9gD2Y

The last stage of the game. Seems there's five stages total. The stage 3 boss looks a little interesting, but Stage 4's is just as sad as Stage 1's, and Stage 5's boss, while still not animated, looks like the hardest by far.


-=WARNING=-

The (an?) ending's included in the video, and it explains what was up with the ascii art in that Japanese thread.

[icepick]

Okay. Even not having played the previous games, I sympathize wholeheartedly with all of the TF fans that were basically manipulated with this release of Broken Thunder. Maybe the developers had the best of intentions, and simply felt that the soundtrack deserved a game to go with it... but the blandness of the backgrounds, level design, enemy formations and boss attacks are no match for the brilliance of the music and imagination of fans. (It's not the visuals, it's the vitality of the whole game, which seems not to be present.)

I'm not complaining, though, and I still think that this game could've been fantastic. It seems that they might've underestimated the amount of time, effort and funding required to pull something like this off decently, and so, they had to sell it as-is to keep from being in the red. Some would say that they should've known what they were getting into, but that's a given. Who wants to make a bad game? Who wants to then go out of business afterwards? There's a possibility that FN&AG will try again in the future, but I'd believe it if they stuck to soundtracks. I hope that they do try again if they really wish to.

Thank you Coop.

PS- S. Laydock, I'm still (still?!) up for purchasing the game from you if you decide to sell it. I did say that I would. Who knows, maybe it's something that I could actually complete, if I was able to get past those obnoxious final boss patterns, that is.

Edit- Wow; The first stage looks pretty nice compared to the second and final.

[Super Laydock]

Cheer up S.L.; I will totally buy yours from you if you really don't like it! Then you can put the funds aside for... Laster Hope, or Last Hope Ever, or however they want to call it.

(LHE: TBA 2020~)

nah I know you´ve got plenty of other stuff you want to try out, so I won´t be passing on the possible burden of owning this (while having paid for it) on to you. And hell, even if the game would suck it still has awesome music which would probably make me fire it up a few times anyway.

You know; If I buy BT off you, and someone buys it off me, and so on, then eventually 20 people will have gotten to try it for the price of a rental... except the last person gets to keep it.

Post companies love these kind of ideas you know.
Could be a great idea for trying out stuff of unknown quality if you´ve got a bunch of interested people living close by though. Kinda like renting it.

[P_HAT]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsCgCT9gD2Y

The last stage of the game. Seems there's five stages total. The stage 3 boss looks a little interesting, but Stage 4's is just as sad as Stage 1's, and Stage 5's boss, while still not animated, looks like the hardest by far.


-=WARNING=-

The (an?) ending's included in the video, and it explains what was up with the ascii art in that Japanese thread.

crap. this game is 101% crap. And lol - they steal design for last boss from Z.O.E

[Necronom]

After watching the video of the last stage...yeah, it's clearly an unfinished product. Too bad really, because it shows potential but the lack of animation on some of the bosses and the very bland background really kills it. The winged creature is actually kinda nice. That's probably how all the bosses were supposed to be. The one after the bird looks like a walker with spiderlike legs. I guess the plan was to have it walk around but now it's just ridiculous.
Does anybody know what went wrong here? I mean it looks like there's some tragic story behind this project.
I won't buy this 'cause it's obviously not worth the money but I wish the makers would take a break to think the whole thing over and then get back to it. Would be a shame if they'd decide to give up now because of this.

[Herr Schatten]

The winged creature is actually kinda nice. [...] The one after the bird looks like a walker with spiderlike legs.

Both are bosses from Thunderforce V. (Deep Purple and Armament Armed Arm to be precise.) Only that they looked at least 10 times better in TFV.

[Necronom]

@Herr Schatten
Ah! Thanks for the info. I have lots of fond memories about IV but never played V. I guess that's the main sin they commited - pretending to deliver another Thunderforce.

Aren't they now expected to commit seppuku or something?
Just joking, of course...

[pixelcorps]

It seems that they might've underestimated the amount of time, effort and funding required to pull something like this off decently, and so, they had to sell it as-is to keep from being in the red. Some

if that was the case they shouldn't have wasted the money on CD mastering and package design, that would have cost them more than the dev budget.

[Ghegs]

First-hand impressions ahoy!

It's tricky to review the game since everybody has already taken it into their heart that the game is totally crap, and even the smallest positive thing I might say could be interpreted as me attempting to justify the money I spent. But rest assured, your impressions are mostly correct. Also, I'm trying to look at the game as a stand-alone product, meaning that all connections or lack thereof to the Thunder Force series are ignored.

First I have to mention I was a bit disappointed the Limited edition was just a normal DVD case with the two discs. There was literally nothing else, even the manual is stored only as PDF on the game disc.

There's quite a crapload of settings. I managed to get full screen and configure my controls on my own, but beyond that I'm mostly lost. Hopefully there's a "one button for each weapon"-type of option somewhere. If somebody with japanese skills wants to translate the option menus, do go ahead.

Screen
Dunno #1
Dunno #2
Music/Sound
Font
Controls

Now, on to the game. It's actually more fun to play than it looks like from the vids listed in this thread. Somebody complained about the lack of physical obstacles, there actually are undestroyable asteroids in one stage, but that's it. Personally, I don't crave for more. The enemy placement is pretty good, and the smaller enemies do look nice enough, as well as the player ship. Explosions look pasted on, however. There's no scoring system beyond "shoot enemy X for Y amount of points".

The bosses. Yes, they look uninspired and animate about as much as a random piece of rock. Except for the Stage 3 boss, which is a fire dragon (or something resembling such) flying around.

Pay attention, here comes what I think is the real problem of the game.

The bosses, which take a lot of damage, are cheap. Every single one of them to some degree. Every boss has an instant laser and they don't give out any visual warning. You learn to expect (and therefore avoid) them after a fight or two since they always appear in the same form and place during their attack sequences, but still. Also, the blue sharp needles which bosses 3 and 5 (the last boss) throw at you are very, very hard to see. And there's usually a lot of them. Part of the problem comes with the colors, they don't stand out enough from the background.

The boss-problem culminates with the Final Boss. I hadn't watched the Stage 5 video, so it was completely a surprise to me. I could one-life into stage 5 easily enough, and even deal with the bosses again, but the final boss....holy crap. It's nothing but instant lasers and blue needles with some high-speed bullet clusters and homing weapons. I managed to beat him after using every single one of the given five credits.

Had the bosses been given a total overhaul the game would've been decent enough, maybe 7/10. As it is, 4/10. And I'm counting the very extensive omake library into that. There are craploads of images (CGI, hand-drawn, concept art), a storyboard, some text files which I think tell the game's story in great detail and the movies. I think there might be a hidden third ship unlocked by some means as some of the images hint to that direction.

Oh, and the music rocks, I'm listening to the OST as I type this. This stuff's definately going into my MP3 player.

[Super Laydock]

Thanks for the impressions, Ghegs!

I must say that after fearing the worst it actually doesn´t sound as bad as it probably had sounded if I had seen nothing before...
And am glad to hear it is actually more fun than the video suggests.

Bw, those Omake things you´re talking about are they on the normal game disc or on the extra disc (and therefore LE exclusive)?

Also can you tell me if the music is "redbook" on the game disc?
I´d be a very happy man if that would be the case. (Then again I suppose it isn´t the case as it could make the whole LE concept redundant).

[Ghegs]

Bw, those Omake things you´re talking about are they on the normal game disc or on the extra disc (and therefore LE exclusive)?

They're on the normal game disc. Which is a DVD, so no redbook.

[BulletMagnet]

The bosses, which take a lot of damage, are cheap. Every single one of them to some degree.

I tend to feel the same way about the "real" TF games, but maybe it's just me.

*activate meme shield!*

[Fighter17]

So what I'm getting is it's not worth the price?

Sad, because I wanted to try out the game.

[gameoverDude]

how can a game company release a game like this in 2007...

Italicized the crucial word that makes this a superfluous question.

With EMS being fast and all, I hope either Ghegs or Gameoverdude will receive their copy tomorrow and can post some first hand impressions.

I certainly hope my 40 bucks didn´t go down the drain here*...though I fear the worst after watching the vids a few times more.


*now if only it had redbook audio I´d be already happy

I've gotten my copy of BT today. To be honest, I was underwhelmed with the game play and the backgrounds. The bosses are certainly bland in comparison to TF 5, and I think they should go through several different forms considering the amount of damage required to bring them down. The design of the stages is rather lackluster compared to TF4 & 5. One boss (ST3) which looks like a fire dragon/Vermillion Coronatus hybrid is actually cool.

The game does lack scoreplay- totally. You're merely rewarded for surviving and not letting enemies escape.

But there is that awesome soundtrack, with Tsukumo Hyakutaro as one of the composers. That did take some of the sting out of paying $65 for the LE.

Don't be expecting Thunder Force 6. Doing that will only invite grave disappointment.

[Zeether]

What a shame...It looked so promising and then turned out to be utter crap.

I hope that Thunder Future game will be better than this shitload of fuck.

[Specineff]

I thought that Thunder Future and Broken Thunder were the same game.

[nem]

I thought that Thunder Future and Broken Thunder were the same game.

No sir

[Ceph]

Wow, Thunder Future looks so much better than Broken Thunder, like a *real* Thunder Force game: http://liberty-hp.ddo.jp/tf/thunderfutu ... 7_0109.mov

[UnscathedFlyingObject]

Not holding my breath.

[UnscathedFlyingObject]

The bosses, which take a lot of damage, are cheap. Every single one of them to some degree.

I tend to feel the same way about the "real" TF games, but maybe it's just me.

*activate meme shield!*

it's just you.

[Gungriffon Geona]

Wow, Thunder Future looks so much better than Broken Thunder, like a *real* Thunder Force game: http://liberty-hp.ddo.jp/tf/thunderfutu ... 7_0109.mov

pardon your obvious sarcasm, but it does look ten times better than BT does.

[Ceph]

Wow, Thunder Future looks so much better than Broken Thunder, like a *real* Thunder Force game: http://liberty-hp.ddo.jp/tf/thunderfutu ... 7_0109.mov

pardon your obvious sarcasm, but it does look ten times better than BT does.

That was not sarcasm, I meant it. Thunder Future looks like Thunder Force should. Let's hope it will be released one day; this project has been underway for several years. (Though judging from the video it's progressing nicely).

[pixelcorps]

Thunder Future looks like Thunder Force should.

indeed , those repeating cloud textures are utterly AMAZING.