Blast Wind: Worth getting?

[320x240]

Yeah, I don't like shooters that don't give me the option to use the full screen. Either give me a Tate mode, or make it a true full screen vertizontal like RSG, Gigawing, etc. If not, and my only option is to have big stupid bars (filled with the score, or wallpaper, or whatever) on each side of the screen, I think it sucks.

I find full screen verizontals have to wide a playing area and much prefer something with a playing area that is closer to square. I played some MUSHA yesterday and couldn't get used to the wide playing area. With a square playing area the game gets more intense (Cho Ren Cha).

[Fighter17]

there was a limited PCB release, or a release in general.... I own it, for blast wind that is.

Pictures and PCB Dumps required.

[J-Manic]

Wow, thanks man. Haha, I didn't even know hardly anyone read all that stuff.

One day I will post more.

I read your reviews, too, a long time ago before I even bought Blast Wind and Hyper Duel. They were much help in making my decision. And I have to say Iam happy that I bought them both.

[Arvandor]

Yeah, I read your reviews as well. Your tastes definitely differ from mine. A lot =)

[professor ganson]

there was a limited PCB release, or a release in general.... I own it, for blast wind that is.

Cool, so is it a normal vertical in the arcade version?

[The Coop]

I've never understood how this game got so stupidly expensive. People slap "OMG L@@K RARE!" on this thing when there's no reason to. It's not rare, and it's not the pinnacle of shmupping either. It's a fun, but easy game, with good music.


Anyway, I bought it for $35 years ago, in good shape, only missing the spine card. If you can find it for a decent price, it's a good shmup that'll keep you entertained for a while. But don't go over $60 for it. Anything higher is ridiculous.

[Skyknight]

I think I saw a screenshot of the options menu once, and it had a "DIP Switches" section. If this wasn't initially planned for arcade, why any reference to them, since they're physical objects, not just programming toggles?

Interestingly, on one of Icarus's YouTube captures, a poster mentioned a rumor that the original/working title was "Inazuma Blade". Inazuma is Japanese for "lightning".

Lightning Blade...Thunder Force...Hmmm...

[BulletMagnet]

I think I saw a screenshot of the options menu once, and it had a "DIP Switches" section.

If memory serves, the Options menu is indeed titled "DIP Switches." IIRC on the back of one of the TF Gold Packs it had some full tate screenshots of Blast Wind (something like that, someone'll have to refresh my memory).

That said, though, I don't recall anyone ever discovering any hard evidence of a Blast Wind arcade release. I sort of wonder if they gave it such an "arcadey" presentation just for the heck of it.

[J-Manic]

Interestingly, on one of Icarus's YouTube captures, a poster mentioned a rumor that the original/working title was "Inazuma Blade". Inazuma is Japanese for "lightning".

Lightning Blade...Thunder Force...Hmmm...

Interesting.

Lightning Blade sounds a lot better than Blast Wind. The 1P blue ship's shot looks like it could've been the reason for the title.

[Ganelon]

there was a limited PCB release, or a release in general.... I own it, for blast wind that is.

Pictures and PCB Dumps required.

Word, this would be fascinating news. You gotta tell us whether there are any differences.

Anyway, I saw a $20 Ebay BIN Blast Wind get snatched in 46 sec. 2 years back (fastest BIN I've ever seen).

[Strider77]

Pictures and PCB Dumps required. Very Happy

lol... sorry I was totally BS'ing on that one.... couldn't resist. I know, I know, I'm evil.

[Ganelon]

BS without hints? What's the world come to?

That said, it's not inconceivable that somebody somewhere has a Blast Wind PCB or Taromaru PCB or Zintrick cart or other such mythical beasts.

[Fighter17]

lol... sorry I was totally BS'ing on that one.... couldn't resist. I know, I know, I'm evil.

I want five PCBs to pay for damages.

[professor ganson]

A dull topic made memorable.

[shinsage]

we can never trust strider again.

[GaijinPunch]

It's not rare,

There's rarely more than 2 (and very often zero) on Yahoo Japan... where you can pretty much find anything. Most would equate that to rare.

Taromaru PCB

Playstation version: likely. PCB: Much less likely. Was Time Warner known for arcade production? I know Iuchi was familiar w/ at least ST-V.

[Fighter17]

Taromaru PCB

Playstation version: likely. PCB: Much less likely. Was Time Warner known for arcade production? I know Iuchi was familiar w/ at least ST-V.

Never was a PSX version.

Rumor was that Taromaru was actually a ST-V game.

[The Coop]

It's not rare,

There's rarely more than 2 (and very often zero) on Yahoo Japan... where you can pretty much find anything. Most would equate that to rare.

Or people just not being willing to part with it... which artificially makes it seem rare.

[jp]

It's not rare,

There's rarely more than 2 (and very often zero) on Yahoo Japan... where you can pretty much find anything. Most would equate that to rare.

Or people just not being willing to part with it... which artificially makes it seem rare.

Mmm... I find it hard to believe that people are clinging to their copies of Blast Wind. I might could see that with something universally praised like Radiant Silvergun or Panzer Dragoon Saga, but Blast Wind? Come on man, there's like, 5 of us that actually love that game. For everyone else its "boohoo too easy". And given that you can sell it for a pretty penny now...

I mean hell, I remember looking for that one for like, a year or two, with absolutely NO luck. Thankfully greg is f'ing awesome and sold me his mint/complete one for $30.

[The Coop]

There's rarely more than 2 (and very often zero) on Yahoo Japan... where you can pretty much find anything. Most would equate that to rare.

Or people just not being willing to part with it... which artificially makes it seem rare.

Mmm... I find it hard to believe that people are clinging to their copies of Blast Wind. I might could see that with something universally praised like Radiant Silvergun or Panzer Dragoon Saga, but Blast Wind? Come on man, there's like, 5 of us that actually love that game. For everyone else its "boohoo too easy". And given that you can sell it for a pretty penny now...

I mean hell, I remember looking for that one for like, a year or two, with absolutely NO luck. Thankfully greg is f'ing awesome and sold me his mint/complete one for $30.

That's kind of my point. When I used to look around on eBay for a while years ago, and when I'd look up BW, it was there in plentiful numbers (5+ copies usually). Now all of a sudden, you only see one or two copies of it. To me, this smacks of the whole "Rondo of Blood"-type thing, where the game isn't rare, but is sure does go for stupid amounts of cash because it wasn't released in the US for the longest time. The price for BW just seems to have somehow been artificially inflated to the point of silliness for something that's OMG RARE when it actually isn't.

Darius Alpha is rare. BW isn't from my own searches and such over the years.

[Strider77]

there are lots of games at stupid prices on ebay these days.

SF Zero 3
Cotton Boomerang
Blast Wind
Border Down

these are a few to me are way over priced that I've seen recently.

[jp]

Or people just not being willing to part with it... which artificially makes it seem rare.

Mmm... I find it hard to believe that people are clinging to their copies of Blast Wind. I might could see that with something universally praised like Radiant Silvergun or Panzer Dragoon Saga, but Blast Wind? Come on man, there's like, 5 of us that actually love that game. For everyone else its "boohoo too easy". And given that you can sell it for a pretty penny now...

I mean hell, I remember looking for that one for like, a year or two, with absolutely NO luck. Thankfully greg is f'ing awesome and sold me his mint/complete one for $30.

That's kind of my point. When I used to look around on eBay for a while years ago, and when I'd look up BW, it was there in plentiful numbers (5+ copies usually). Now all of a sudden, you only see one or two copies of it. To me, this smacks of the whole "Rondo of Blood"-type thing, where the game isn't rare, but is sure does go for stupid amounts of cash because it wasn't released in the US for the longest time. The price for BW just seems to have somehow been artificially inflated to the point of silliness for something that's OMG RARE when it actually isn't.

Darius Alpha is rare. BW isn't from my own searches and such over the years.

Its obviously not as rare as Darius Alpha. You'd have to be talking about Derisoba Deluxe or something if you wanted THAT level of rare.

But is it more rare than most any other shooter on the Saturn? I'd say thats more than likely. Well, except maybe Hyper Duel.

Though like I said, when I was scouring the internet for it (forums, ebay, etc.) back in '03-'04 I could NEVER... EVER... find a copy. It just did not exist. Never even saw an incomplete copy. Blast Wind and Crows: The Battle Action were THE two most elusive games for me in so far as my Saturn collecting goes.

So I don't know. Maybe in '05-'07 there was a surge of them on Ebay when people realized they could sell it for so much. Typically, when it game hits the "expensive" mark, you CAN find it, because people are willing to throw down the money for it. Recall how hard Taromaru was to find back when it cost $75-90 compared to when it started going for $300+. Right now there's two Blast Winds on Ebay, one of which has probably sat there for awhile due to it being a BIN and priced a bit high. The other is incomplete and was probably listed today.

Regardless, I would definitely say Blast Wind is about as hard to find at Crows or Taromaru.

[Ganelon]

Yeah, the game was always a hard find but used to go for a surprisingly low $20-40 years back on the few occasions it popped up. If you saw many copies, chances are you saw it when prices were already rising.

You have demand from dumb/rich collectors and prices spike. No hoarding, just prodigence. Otherwise, you could make the same claim for all expensive but not rare games. FFVII has all of a sudden gone from best-selling PS game of all time to an uncommon game. Deliberate hoarding? No, just some folks keeping a good game and more new people interested who didn't buy it before. Is it that unusual for 2% of all games to increase in value over a few years? I'd rather all games went for $5 too but that doesn't look like it'll happen, eh?

Amusingly enough, Blast Wind's spine card itself has always seemed to be worth half the game's price...

[Skyknight]

I wouldn't say that Blast Wind PCB's exist, except maybe in TecnoSoft's archives rooms/building (whoever has jurisdiction over them). More likely they scrapped the distribution/production part of the project, but still had something that they felt at least the console market would appreciate.

[J-Manic]

http://cgi.ebay.com/BLAST-WIND-Sega-Sat ... ksidZp1638

Damn!

[jp]

Eh, BIN prices are always higher than the game would normally go for. The thing to watch would be that one copy currently up for auction.

[Fighter17]

No way in hell someone is going to BIN with that price.

[gameoverDude]

I wouldn't say that Blast Wind PCB's exist, except maybe in TecnoSoft's archives rooms/building (whoever has jurisdiction over them). More likely they scrapped the distribution/production part of the project, but still had something that they felt at least the console market would appreciate.

I'm guessing the hardware for Blast Wind if a well hidden PCB does exist is the same dual 68000 hardware used for Hyper Duel. It may just be another case like Marble Madness II, waiting to be revealed someday by one lucky collector. That BW Tate pic showed the scores at the top of the screen, so it has to be from a PCB release.

While it's not a bad game, triple figure prices are a bit exorbitant IMO for Blast Wind. If I didn't have BW already, I'd be ready to settle for an incomplete copy (missing manual and/or spine card)- hell with that $130 BIN price.

[Dragon1952]

I was selling one complete with spine in virtual unplayed form for $80 but only got flack for that so I withdrew it.

What something is worth is only relavant to what someone will pay to get what they want at that given moment. I wasn't actively using my example of this game so I tried to offer it for what most were saying they had bought or sold theirs for.

[J-Manic]

[hell with that $130 BIN price.

Actually, it would be a whopping $142 after shipping. Too insane a price for any sane person buy. But who am I to talk? I spent $90 on the fucker.