Play-asia's getting into the SHMUP business (Soldner-X)

icepick · Post by **icepick** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 2:09 am

It looks like as of June 11th, they've posted work-in-progress screen shots showcasing the third stage in the game:

News Article
Media Page

Looks crispy. I don't have enough experience with shmups in general to be able to say what it looks like, although I did think about five different games for the various details.

I still wonder why Play-Asia's news post was in the "PSOne" section. I also hope that this is an actual game that one can buy, although it will be nice (particularly for the environment) when we can buy games digitally and store them in both our consoles and online lockers (for playing at friends' houses, or something). I haven't thought that concept through, and I don't mean to derail the thread, so please note that I meant that it would be nice if the game was actually a um... game-game, if you know what I mean.

In all, the game looks pretty decent. Wait to see it in motion first. Ha ha.

Edit- I noticed after I posted this that I had an E-mail in my inbox, indicating the release of the screen shots. Figures.

Edit II- In that E-mail, they mention updating the features and story sections, the latter of which makes me think "The Shooting: 28 Days Later ~In Space~" or something along those lines.

I also noticed that they have a topic in their forum, where they are accepting input on the work-in-progress; sort of like a location test form? I'm not sure, but I don't think that it's meant as a "tell us which features you want" so much as an "are we doing what we want to do, to a satisfying degree?" which is still nice.

Story Page
Post your feedback and help us to make Söldner-X even better

Post by **Ghegs** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 6:31 am

icepick wrote:Edit II- In that E-mail, they mention updating the features and story sections, the latter of which makes me think "The Shooting: 28 Days Later ~In Space~" or something along those lines.

Heh, indeed. Maybe they're hoping it'll be picked up as official continuation of the series and will be renamed to "280 years later"

The game continues it's euroshmup vibe. At least it's pretty. But a redesign of the HUD might be in order, they've tossed info all around the place. Top-left: score, top-middle: life and weapon energy bars (I'm guessing here), top-right: equipment(?) and smartbombs, bottom-left: ship count, bottom-middle: weapon selection, bottom-right: chain count.

There's gotta be a more compact solution for all that.

Cute how they seem to be using small point values for the enemies, and the last number of the score won't reflect if continues are used. Well, there are other ways to do that.

Also, quote of the day from the feedback-thread:

Shin Ein wrote:it'd be cool to have a shmup game where you can switch between a cockpit view and standard side-scrolling view

sven666 · Post by **sven666** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 6:56 am

oh man this thing has X2 written all over it.. *shudders*

soniq-man · Post by **soniq-man** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 8:14 am

sven666 wrote:oh man this thing has X2 written all over it.. *shudders*

Trust me, it has not.

Rafael Dyll

szycag · Post by **szycag** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 3:23 pm

Hmm it looks better than I thought it would. Probably still not worth the dough however.

Ganelon · Post by **Ganelon** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 4:48 pm

soniq-man wrote:
sven666 wrote:oh man this thing has X2 written all over it.. *shudders*
Trust me, it has not.

Rafael Dyll

You're the composer for Last Hope and this game, right? Awesome work there, man. I'm glad to hear that if this game suffers from poor gameplay, it'll have some great ambient/trance tunes.

Anyway, the 16:9 aspect ratio makes it look like a PSP game. I also totally agree with sven666: at this point, all the on-screen action, western visuals, and juxtaposing colors quite resemble X2 except with the addition of an option and selectable weapons.

Frederik · Post by **Frederik** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 6:56 pm

So, what is this X2 game exactly? Never heard of that before.

Post by **Shatterhand** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 7:04 pm

a PS1 shmup with great visuals, but very poor, boring gameplay. It's also the sequel to Project X, an Amiga shmup with great visuals, but very poor, boring gameplay

It's your typical euroshmup sans energy bar ...

soniq-man · Post by **soniq-man** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 8:10 am

Ganelon wrote: You're the composer for Last Hope and this game, right? Awesome work there, man.

Yes, thank you for the compliments. Söldner-X is definitely in the big league. I can't disclose much (or anything in fact

) yet, but rest assured, there are lots of surprises and fresh ideas in this one. It has nothing in common with Team 17's "classic". The graphics team has not been inspired by that game at all. Planets are found in lots of games.

Regards,

Rafael

Ceph · Post by **Ceph** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 8:39 am

I hope that they learn from Last Hope's mistakes and do external beta testing, preferrably with shmuppers from here. Otherwise I'll probably skip it.

And please no "Limited Edition"; there is really no need for unlicensed console games to have LEs (other than generate preorders for games that wouldn't sell otherwise).

soniq-man · Post by **soniq-man** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 9:03 am

Ceph wrote:I hope that they learn from Last Hope's mistakes and do external beta testing, preferrably with shmuppers from here. Otherwise I'll probably skip it.

And please no "Limited Edition"; there is really no need for unlicensed console games to have LEs (other than generate preorders for games that wouldn't sell otherwise).

Söldner-X has nothing to do with Last Hope what so ever. The only thing in common is that I am hired for the sound design, sfx and music. It's a totally different team (far bigger, including many veterans), different publisher, different people, different concept and game. But mum's the word, I'm not leaking out more info. You'll have to watch www.soldner-x.com for more news.

Rafael

Ceph · Post by **Ceph** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 9:09 am

I understood that it's a different team. I still hope they learn from the mistakes of Last Hope and don't repeat them.

PS.
Your music in Last Hope was not a mistake

soniq-man · Post by **soniq-man** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 9:35 am

Ceph wrote: Your music in Last Hope was not a mistake

In that case... thanks.

ROBOTRON · Post by **ROBOTRON** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 11:37 pm

soniq-man wrote:
Ceph wrote:I hope that they learn from Last Hope's mistakes and do external beta testing, preferrably with shmuppers from here. Otherwise I'll probably skip it.

And please no "Limited Edition"; there is really no need for unlicensed console games to have LEs (other than generate preorders for games that wouldn't sell otherwise).
Söldner-X has nothing to do with Last Hope what so ever. The only thing in common is that I am hired for the sound design, sfx and music. It's a totally different team (far bigger, including many veterans), different publisher, different people, different concept and game. But mum's the word, I'm not leaking out more info. You'll have to watch www.soldner-x.com for more news.

Rafael

I am very interested in this game. What platform(s) again? Hopefully PS/PS2 or DC?

BTW....thanx for keeping the genre alive and kicking.

pixelcorps · Post by **pixelcorps** » Fri Jun 15, 2007 7:49 pm

screenshots are out on playasia's site

the shots are 1280 by 720, standard HD 720p resolution.

No point in doing 720p on a PC, because most screens aren't widesreen, nor is it a standard PC res..

so, I hypothesize it will quite possibly be a DLC release on the 360 or ps3..

looks like a euroshmup version of gradius judging by the powerup system, with some very high res, but really uninspired graphics

ROBOTRON · Post by **ROBOTRON** » Fri Jun 15, 2007 10:24 pm

pixelcorps wrote:screenshots are out on playasia's site

the shots are 1280 by 720, standard HD 720p resolution.

No point in doing 720p on a PC, because most screens aren't widesreen, nor is it a standard PC res..

so, I hypothesize it will quite possibly be a DLC release on the 360 or ps3..

looks like a euroshmup version of gradius judging by the powerup system, with some very high res, but really uninspired graphics

Thanx for the info.

I do not have a PS3 yet, but I'll finally give in and buy one if this gets positive press...I really see no other reason to own a PS3 (so far).

As far as the XBox goes I am in line for the "Elite" system....I had put off buying one of those as well.

Pixel_Outlaw · Post by **Pixel_Outlaw** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 1:20 am

Hmmm my gut tells me that there will be an overuse of plasma effects and "animation" consisting of simply rotating unanimated images.

icepick · Post by **icepick** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 9:44 pm

Well; It's not surprising, but someone on the Dreamcast-Scene forums inquired about the possibility of the game on the Dreamcast (ow, who threw that shoe?) and it seems that the official word is that going from 720p to 480p would cause too much of a drop in quality (hopefully they don't mean "game quality") and that they believe that Sega is no longer licensing DC games.

As an aside, they also seemed to reference the idea that DC fans will buy any game.

Ghegs wrote:Maybe they're hoping it'll be picked up as official continuation of the series and will be renamed to "280 years later"

Astronomy Scientist: "They've become infected!"
Ship & Asteroid Humane Activist: "Infected with what?"
Astronomy Scientist: "Rage."

Ghegs wrote:The game continues it's euroshmup vibe. At least it's pretty. But a redesign of the HUD might be in order, they've tossed info all around the place.

That's a valid point. I suppose that it could change since it's only 35% completed, but maybe it could be mentioned in their feedback topic? The layout looks nice and streamlined, and I can understand it if they wanted the overall display to seem balanced, but that would indeed be a lot of looking around. The items in the middle top and bottom probably wouldn't be tough to discern with peripheral vision, and maybe we'd only be glancing to the right for the chains anyway, but I'm sure that things could be stacked on one side pretty nicely.

... I suppose that this game is 1P-only? I can't remember if that was mentioned anywhere in the official releases. (Just a thought.)

Ghegs wrote:Also, quote of the day from the feedback-thread:

Shin Ein wrote:it'd be cool to have a shmup game where you can switch between a cockpit view and standard side-scrolling view

I saw that too, but couldn't bring myself to mention it.

Here's another one:

darkdealx wrote:Collision damage ...as your energy bar depletes, it should also reflect on the condition of your ship. Think of it ....you could be the first company to do so

Imagine the glory!

Pixel_Outlaw wrote:Hmmm my gut tells me that there will be an overuse of plasma effects and "animation" consisting of simply rotating unanimated images.

I kinda don't mind smoothly-rotating sprites, but if by "plasma effects" you're referring to the softglow/bloom effect that everyone's using on everything these days, then I was thinking the same thing.

One could probably make Super Mario Bros. look next-gen by wearing a dirty pair of lightly-sanded eyeglasses.

I mean that in the most lighthearted fashion.

Reluctant Hero · Post by **Reluctant Hero** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 7:05 pm

icepick wrote:Well; It's not surprising, but someone on the Dreamcast-Scene forums inquired about the possibility of the game on the Dreamcast (ow, who threw that shoe?) and it seems that the official word is that going from 720p to 480p would cause too much of a drop in quality (hopefully they don't mean "game quality") and that they believe that Sega is no longer licensing DC games.

As an aside, they also seemed to reference the idea that DC fans will buy any game.

As much as I'd love to see more official DC games, the DC just isn't capable of 720p. I definately agree with many people's hypothesis that this game will be submited to both Sony and Xbox as DLC. But I wonder if the game can be shrunk down to 150 megs for Xbox Live Arcade?

sfried · Post by **sfried** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 7:44 pm

Any chance on Wii? (Of course, I'm assuming downscaled from 720p.)

HardcoreOtaku · Post by **HardcoreOtaku** » Fri Jul 06, 2007 9:50 am

my first thoughts are its too western styled for my tastes but I think its great to support software houses/Developers in making new 2D shoot-em-ups so on that front its all good.

RyanDG · Post by **RyanDG** » Mon Jul 09, 2007 6:37 pm

For those interested, I was given a teaser image from the guys (and gals) at SideQuest Studios featuring the first look at Soldner-X's planet-side missions.

You can check it out here:
http://arcaderenaissance.blogspot.com/2 ... -soon.html

I'm getting a distinct Thunderforce vibe... Anyone else feel the same?

soniq-man · Post by **soniq-man** » Wed Jul 18, 2007 10:07 am

You may have spotted the big site update, platform vote count, lots of new screens, some GUI info and even sound previews:

www.soldner-x.com

Best,

Rafael

P_HAT · Post by **P_HAT** » Wed Jul 18, 2007 10:20 am

soniq-man wrote:You may have spotted the big site update, platform vote count, lots of new screens, some GUI info and even sound previews:

www.soldner-x.com

Best,

Rafael

whoa, nice, i vote for PC release =)

Kaspal · Post by **Kaspal** » Fri Jul 20, 2007 3:12 am

i also voted for PC, since im not buyin any home consoles in the near future (im all feed up with handhelds), so a PC release would be great for me... lets hope it happens.

Pixel_Outlaw · Post by **Pixel_Outlaw** » Fri Jul 20, 2007 5:21 am

I may have been too hasty to write it off as a poor game. I think if it stays true to the inherent simplicity of shmups it will be fine. It does look better in some of the new shots.

Post by **Shatterhand** » Fri Jul 20, 2007 1:54 pm

well, voted for PC too.

Super Laydock · Post by **Super Laydock** » Fri Jul 20, 2007 10:22 pm

With the lack of a Dreamcast option (I guess the 720p graphics detail already gave that away, unfortunately), I have voted for the PC option as well.

I too am not planning to buy a X360 or PS3 and do have a quite powerful PC atm so it was an obvious choice.

If they DO decide to release it for one of those consoles I really do hope it will be disc based though. It´s so much nicer imho to have an actual physical copy of a new game...

Btw Play-Asia seem to be promoting this quite a bit, even sending teaser stickers/flyers with their orders. Sure they "support" this game release but still... at least THEY seem to believe in some selling power of shmups. And they can know.

No_not_like_Quake · Post by **No_not_like_Quake** » Sat Jul 21, 2007 2:10 am

I'd consider getting this game if it was on xbla priced at 800 msp. Otherwise, forget it. My PC is a POS and I have no interest in PS3.

antron · Post by **antron** » Sat Jul 21, 2007 9:15 pm

I'd consider getting this game if it was on PS3 network priced at $8.00. Otherwise, forget it. My PC is Linux and I have no interest in Xbox 360.