Vapor Trail - Mega Drive

[Ceph]

Operartion Code "Vapor Trail" (aka. Kuuga) is a port of the 1989 Data East vertical shooter Vapor Trail: Hyper Offence Formation. I haven't played the aracde game but from what I've read, the Mega Drive/Genesis port is pretty close.

The game is actually the first part of a trilogy: The second is Wolf Fang (Japanese name: Kuuga 2001) from 1991 (arcade, PS1, Saturn), and Skull Fang (Japanese name: Kuuga Gaiden) from 1996 (arcade, Saturn) is the third.

I just got Vapor Trail today, and so far I'm enjoying it.

[Fighter17]

Vapor Trail was gay.

Wolf Fang was great.

And Skull Fang was meh.

[D]

There have been times when I have considered Vapor Trail the best megadrive shmup. Wolf fang was strange. Skull Fang had too much going on. I do adore Data East though.

[DEL]

I have not played the Mega Drive port, so I'm not sure if it has the huge swirling firepower that was so vital to success in the arcade original.

I used to like the game in the arcade and was pleased that it had the rarest of things-->a long-term high score save.

I will have to go and try the arcade original again on MAME/Xbox and get the swirling firepower to work. I'll post the method here afterwards (if someone doesn't beat me to it ).

EDIT:

Ceph wrote;

The add-on breaks off when you press C, tapping B (shot button) after throwing it off does nothing. I'll try again.

EDIT: I tried 4 times, can't get it to work. I've got a Japanese cartridge, maybe it's different from the US-release?

Both C & B at the same time for the break-off, then B rapidly on its own. That's pretty much how I remember it.

Will check...

[Ceph]

My bad, B is actually auto-fire, A is for normal shot. I tried it again with A, didn't work either. Maybe they left it out of the MD version.

[DEL]

I don't remember there being an autofire button in the arcade original, as I remember having to tap A madly to keep the swirling firepower going, so it should be C & A at same time then A rapidly, no pause in-between.

It should be in the port, but who knows?

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Playing the arcade PCB of Vapor Trail with an auto-fire enabled joystick gives it new life -- definitely saves some "wear 'n' tear" on the ol' fingers/hands from those damned rapid-fire button presses..... ^_~

I've noticed that some vintage arcade shmup PCB titles such as Vapor Trail and A-Jax/Typhoon really don't support external auto-fire very well unless it's the adjustable variety & not the fixed auto-fire rate setup.... ^_~

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[FRO]

I've had the Vapor Trail Genesis cart for some time now. It's one of those games I hit a wall on (the level w/ the swirly fire tank things) and sort of never went back to. I should pull it out again & give it another go. Love the de facto crappy voices, ala Bad Dudes!

[PC Engine Fan X!]

I've had the Vapor Trail Genesis cart for some time now. It's one of those games I hit a wall on (the level w/ the swirly fire tank things) and sort of never went back to. I should pull it out again & give it another go. Love the de facto crappy voices, ala Bad Dudes!

For FRO,

Believe it or not, Atari Games were the ones who made the raster-scan version of Starfighter arcade cabinet upright shown in the movie. There were plans to bring out a production version of "The Last Starfighter" arcade game but it was scrapped due to the "Great Video Game Crash of 1984"...a prototype does exist to this day but is a raster-scan version. Would've been cool as a vector-based arcade game as well..... ^_~

It would've been bitchin' cool had a "Last Starfighter" arcade game been released as promised...

The very same arcade control layout of the Starfigher cab shown in the movie is the same layout on the Atari Games' 1992 Space Lords arcade cabinet setup (with up to eight people playing a multi-player session of Space Lords is possible with four seperate cabs all linked up)...I thought that they looked familiar and was shocked to find out that I was right in my assumptions..... ^_~

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[FRO]

A doujin team called Rogue Synapse has engineered a PC game to look & sound like the game in the movie:

http://www.roguesynapse.com/games/last_starfighter.php

It's pretty impressive.

[it290]

I've always found Genesis Vapor Trail to be a thoroughly enjoyable 16-bit shmup. Its style and attitude really scream shmup to me, and it's easy enough that you don't have to pay that much attention to it -- kind of an ideal time-killer game. The only thing I dislike is that the good weapon (the swirl) sounds and feels so lame compared to some of the others.