Thunder Force deathmatch

[Turrican]

TF4 is the one TF where all weapons are useful and are (at least by myself) rotated throughout the stages. TF5 is at the opposite end. TF4 has 10 stages w/ action. It was like Gradius V to TF5's SNES Gradius 3 minus a stage or two.

Wait... what? All the weapons in III are useful - event the Wave comes in handy during a couple of sections. TFIV, on the other hand, has that stupid Snake which is only marginally useful on one boss. And what's up with the Blade actually being worse against some bosses than the standard Twin Shot?

I agree that Blade sucks, but I must disagree on snake, the whole Ruin stage can be done easily with it. Powerful weapon.

[it290]

Good point, I forgot about its use there for the multiplying-trap things. I still use Hunter for most of the stage though.

[Limbrooke]

My problem with TF5 was that when I began playing I could never understand how I died many a time. The bullets often blend with the background thanks to occasionally turning brown or golden.

I used think they were hard games when I began playing and with limited time since I have yet to one credit clear any, although I might be closest with TF4. It's funny too since I used to think the worst of TF4, possibly since I didn't run the vertical stage(s) too well. Either that or not understanding which weapons to use. I might now say that TF4 is my favourite of the series while AC/3 and 5 jockey for next best.

I have no beef against TF2, it's just balls hard.

[HardcoreOtaku]

Now I have to add Thunder Force II. Overhead levels are awesome. Just imagine if they kept those for every Thunder Force.

Agreed, yes TFII graphics looks very crude now, but when I played it in 1989 on an import jap megadrive it blew my mind.
Also bear in mind it was a conversion of a 1988 Sharp X68000 game.

[HardcoreOtaku]

Japlish, engrish... Larger, Good Ruck!

[it290]

I have yet to one credit clear any

Go play TFIII on normal right now. I can almost guarantee you'll 1CC it.
The excellent thing about it is that even though it's balls easy, it's still
fun as hell to play through. And you can always go to Mania mode if you
want a decent challenge (still not brutal, but hey, try 1LC'ing it).

The funny thing is that when I had the game as a kid, I had to use a
controller with slow-motion in order to clear the last stage.

[Rob]

Missed this one

TF5 scaled back to boxed in TF3 designs and its 10 second bosses

The boxed in stage designs feel a lot tighter and finely honed than getting lost in TFIV's bloated levels. 10 seconds bosses are also preferable to 10 minutes ones.

Thunder Force IV has a good balance between normal side-scrolling and the "exploration" stages. Even those stages are split between open (Ruin, Dazer) and choose your path types. That's variety TF3 really could've benefited from.

When I'm playing Haides in TF3 I can only wish for the option to choose a path other than the reverse corridor (!) that's only challenging as a surprise (the first time you play it).

When I'm playing Orn Base and destroying everything before it does anything with Hunter, it really could've used the extra space to explore/more enemies coming from those places. It ends weak. TF3's big curveball is when the screen scrolls diagonally (wow) and for some reason those stages are the easiest in the game.

I know what it is, the scenery acts as a sort of shield for you. Very stupid. Basically, the ship is too overpowered for those compact designs. Weapons or layouts needed changing.

[Rob]

All the weapons in III are useful - event the Wave comes in handy during a couple of sections. TFIV, on the other hand, has that stupid Snake which is only marginally useful on one boss.

Disagreed, Wave is never necessary even if Hunter didn't exist. What TF3 didn't need is a weapon that could destroy enemies before they can even reach you. You might also use the side shot to crawl around certain areas. You can use it but it never feels like the optimal choice.

Turrican already mentioned the wall enemies in Ruin, but I also use Snake for the midboss and boss in Dazer (or really any boss you can attack from the top or bottom), knocking out the gun turrets in the wreckage of Air Raid or on the rocks in the lava stage, etc.

what's up with the Blade actually being worse against some bosses than the standard Twin Shot

Yeah, that's a strange one. I just avoid picking up Blade on default stage one.

[FSR]

I take that the Blade would be a lot better with a smaller hitbox.

Gargoylediver (Strite boss) is the best example for what I'm trying to say: His weak spot, the blue orb, is located right between his armor and his tail. Twin Shots can easily pass that small gap, but the Blade seems too big to pass.

Still, I always pick up the Blade in stage 1.
This assures that two midbosses will appear in the Colony stage (how does TF4’s rank work anyway?)

[szycag]

There are too many "booby traps" in TF3 for someone to 1cc it their first time ever playing it. Just stuff you have a really bad chance of getting right the first time you ever encounter it. The beginning of the fire stage and the middle stage come to mind. Maybe if they had someone yelling in their ear who knew everything that was coming up.

I cleared it today on about 3 credits. It was fun.

[Limbrooke]

There are too many "booby traps" in TF3 for someone to 1cc it their first time ever playing it. Just stuff you have a really bad chance of getting right the first time you ever encounter it. The beginning of the fire stage and the middle stage come to mind. Maybe if they had someone yelling in their ear who knew everything that was coming up.

I cleared it today on about 3 credits. It was fun.

Go play TFIII on normal right now. I can almost guarantee you'll 1CC it.
The excellent thing about it is that even though it's balls easy, it's still
fun as hell to play through. And you can always go to Mania mode if you
want a decent challenge (still not brutal, but hey, try 1LC'ing it).

I would say TF3 just has too many garbage deaths or death by surprise. I barely made it past Hydra-Gorgon-Seiren and having no Hunter, didn't make it far into Haides.

TF4 is more forgiving and actually allows you to be able to react rather than predict.

[it290]

Yeah, there are a few of those, but most of them just involve remembering generally when something is coming up (like any other game). It's nothing like R-Type's 'you should be exactly right here at this time' gameplay.

And Wave is good for blasting through solid formations to get enemies on the other side. Also, IIRC you don't have Hunter when you first pick up wave if you're playing the default stage order.

I also played today... Hard mode, died on the last level. Boo.

[Herr Schatten]

Basically, the ship is too overpowered for those compact designs. Weapons or layouts needed changing.

It's the weapons that need changing. They'd have gotten the boxed in stage designs quite right in TFV if they'd left out the Free Range weapon.

I agree on the lame "surprises" in TFIII, though. They suck.

[KindGrind]

I'm glad to see such a "milestone" being shaken up a bit. I never understood the love for TFV. jp said, in another thread somewhere, that it's more a fan service than anything else, and I think that sums it up pretty well. Everything about TFIV is better than TFV. I don't mind the cheap booby traps of TF3. I will play those other 2 to hell and back before attempting to ever 1cc TFV.

TFV tried too hard in the gfx department. Hitbox is too undefined, too many WTF deaths related to that. I see it as "3d at all costs". Music is quite memorable, though.

[louisg]

I'm glad to see such a "milestone" being shaken up a bit. I never understood the love for TFV.

Me too! As someone who liked tf3 and tf4, I really tried to like tf5 (tried both versions). But, I just can't get past how terrible it is.

[jp]

TFV is very much an exercise in style over substance. There isn't any aspect of it that surpasses any aspect of TFIII/AC/IV.

[Turrican]

Exactly. There wasn't one super powered weapon that you had to constantly use if you wanted to play for score.

There wasn't any point multiplier either in the previous ones, so...

Another plus for them, since the implementation of that was completely asinine.

I disagree. I can play the rest of the saga for just survival purpose, and I can do this for TFV too of course. But, if I want to get good at it (ie high score), I must learn to play it in a different way, which requires the almost constant use of a certain weapon. This isn't any different than many other bizarre scoring techniques out there (see glossary at: milking, suiciding for rank control, point blanking, chaining). It's quite common that a game enables a new sets of rules if you're going to play for being among the top. In short, I resent your comment about scoring being asinine in TFV. Using Free-Range is not really more asinine to have to shoot three black enemies and then three white ones, not really more annoying than having to find all the hidden bees. I keep my stance then... all you're saying above is that evidently you were just too in love with the oldschool survival formula.

Edit: and about difficulty issue, I might add that between the quite-too-easy-to-1LC TF3 and the quite tough-in-an-old-fashion TF4 I prefer a middle road like TF5, when I can be easygoing for survival, but I need to learn an alternative gameplay for hiscore.

[Rob]

TF4 Maniac or nothing.

[StoofooEsq]

This thread is making me want to play all the TF titles again. Barring TF2.

Gargoylediver (Strite boss) is the best example for what I'm trying to say: His weak spot, the blue orb, is located right between his armor and his tail. Twin Shots can easily pass that small gap, but the Blade seems too big to pass.

Good to know I'm not the only one that felt that way about it, because I had a weird approach to the boss. Even though Blade is somewhat ineffective against Gargoylediver, I always picked it up anyway and switched to the Rail Gun's single forward fire to hit its orb when it was locked in, while switching back to Blade to fire at it whenever it was let loose for a clear shot.

[jp]

Due to this thread I actually spent the day playing TF games (or, TFAC, TFIV, and finally, TFV). I 1CC'd all of them, and here's my breakdown:

TFIII/TFAC - Fast, action packed, EASY, but fun. Its like Blast Wind, sure, its easy if you're good at shmups, but its still a fun game to play. In my opinion, of the three it has the best music. Weapons were good, sure, Hunter is a bit powerful, but your other weapons are useful for bosses, so no biggie. Also, if you die and lose Hunter, its still fun to keep playing as the challenge revs up a bit and you have to be more creative.

TFIV - The best. The end. The gameplay is intense, the boss fights are epic, and its just the definition of epic 16-bit shmupping. The weapons balance out VERY well, with everything serving a purpose at some point (though Hunter is a life saver a lot) and all in all its just a great game with an excellent soundtrack, incredibly well designed levels, great boss fights, and intense gameplay.

TFV - Ugly, boring, poorly designed, good music, and entirely too reliant on Free Range. It wouldn't be a problem if EVERY BOSS IN THE GAME WASN'T DESIGNED SPECIFICALLY TO BE KILLED IN A MATTER OF SECONDS WITH THE WEAPON!!!!

Outside of that, gone is the good level design. I think... ONE level was fun to me. And thats level 4. Everything else simply oozed of mediocrity. Enemy designs MIGHT be good, MAYBE, but the ugly 3D graphics make sure that we'll never know. Weapon wise... uh... its just Free Range. Apparently the entire game was built around some guy going, "Hey guys! Remember those missiles you could aim? What if we made it a lock-on laser and based the entire game on that!?"

And like I've always said, its just fan service. Its like, "ZOMG YOU GET TO FIGHT RYNEX, AND LOOK FIGHT THE SHIP FROM HYPER DUEL, AND HERE'S PART 2 TO BLAST WIND'S BOSS MUSIC!!!! ZOMG!!!!!!!!!"

It really feels like the people who made TFV PLAYED Tecno Soft's earlier, but never made them, and was just trying to imitate what Tecno Soft had perfected. Its not a tightly designed game at all, and truth be told enemy attacks/patterns/bullet are ALL incredibly sloppy. There's like, TWO interesting levels ("Oh look... I'm out at the ocean*... an empty... vast... ocean. And now I'm in a forest. Look at me." ) and it was just not very enjoyable.

In my opinion, as a Tecno Soft fanboy, TFV is a highly overrated game. Its not even in the same league as TFIII/AC/IV or Hyper Duel or even Blast Wind. For survival, its an incredibly poor game. When playing for score, its outright ridiculous and becomes a "memorization fest" PLUS an excursion into "only one weapon applies here!", two of the most annoying designs in the genre.

So yes, TFIII/AC/IV >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> TFV.

[HeWhoGoverns]

When do you fight the ship from Hyper Duel in TFV?? Did I miss something??

[TWITCHDOCTOR]

I don't care what what you guys say...Thunder Force is a great series, and is still one of my all time fave Shmuparoo's.

[jp]

When do you fight the ship from Hyper Duel in TFV?? Did I miss something??

Level 4 boss is pretty much an updated version of the Type-01 ship in Hyper Duel.



And I sort of agree Twitch. The side scrolling levels in TFII, TFIII, TFAC, and TFIV are all awesome!!!

[HeWhoGoverns]

I figured you meant the Guardian's Knight, although i disagree. The only way it resembles Hyper duel is that it can transform, other than that, they appear rather different....the Guardian's Knight has a freakin sword.

[jp]

Thats why I said updated.

But there's a moment near the beginning where its shooting some bullet spread at you and it looks just like the mech form of the type-01 ship in Hyper Duel.

[StoofooEsq]

ZOMG YOU GET TO FIGHT RYNEX

At first I was like, "Oh, SHIT."
But then I was like, "Oh. Shit."

Really, even though it was a genuine shock to recognize the boss itself and its music at first, the luster that boss battle had didn't last too long for me. Considering that it's a battle between you and the Rynex — the very ship you used in the previous game — such a confrontation deserved to have much more intensity than what was being delivered.

[EXMaster]

A couple years ago, back in the dark ages of being in college with too much free time, I spent a heavy amount of time going through the series, which lead to me writing this amateurish basic summary article on HG101. As a fan, I felt like summarizing my feelings about each game, which more or less echo what I wrote in the article earlier.

TF 1 - Eh.....I guess we can just skip that one.

TFII - Clearly it's not the best Thunder Force game, but I never understood why it so hated. The overhead stages needed some work yes, but they aren't THAT bad. You guys would (or already do) fucking hate Last Mission then. And I do think the side scrolling sections are enough to make it decent at least. The X68k version is better presentation and graphic wise, but is ruined by an unfair difficulty ramp up as it progresses.

TFIII - As others have said, despite being cake easy, it still manages to be fun, but because of that, I just think of it as a warmup game. Or something to play to piss away some extra time right quick and I don't have anything else to play. I like AC a little better because it ups the challenge a little bit and I like those two exclusive stages. I'm often conflicted about whether I like TFIII or IV's soundtrack more and its a internal debate that continues to rage today.

TFIV - I would go as far as to argue that TFIV is Technosoft's best game PERIOD, let alone the best of the Thunder Force series. The only other possible contender in my mind is Saturn Hyper Duel. Among the reasons stated above, what I particularly like about it is the way it handles things that seemed problematic to me in the other games. Such as the bosses actually putting up a decent fight and taking time/effort to go down, and the fact that the weapons are so balanced and none completely dominate all the others as far as usefulness. I actually like that Blade has a weakness of being ineffective against narrow weak spots because it makes you find creative ways to work around it, where the norm would be to use your powered up standard shot to just tear through everything, i.e. TFIII's Sever laser (besides, the hidden Free Way in the underwater part of stage 1 can deal with Gargoyle Diver well enough anyway).

TFV - I agree with an earlier statement: TFV is definitely style over substance. However, said style and presentation is so good to me, that I often find myself excusing the otherwise unremarkable gameplay to play it every now and then. I do think the one area it excels in is its soundtrack, but admittedly I'm somewhat obsessively into the music of Hyakutaro Tsukumo.

So the short version is, I side with the "TF4 rules all" camp. Now I return to lurking.

[Herr Schatten]

TFIV - [...] the boss fights are epic, and its just the definition of epic 16-bit shmupping.

So, "epic" is the official euphemism for "terribly drawn-out", I guess.
Makes sense. I've seen people use the word a lot when describing RSG.

[jp]

TFIV - [...] the boss fights are epic, and its just the definition of epic 16-bit shmupping.

So, "epic" is the official euphemism for "terribly drawn-out", I guess.
Makes sense, I've seen people use the word a lot when describing RSG.

Drawn out?

I can think of maybe THREE bosses that last longer than a minute. Two of which are at the end.

[JoshF]

Getting more than three bullet patterns out before destruction = terribly drawn-out