To the beginning, this thread is for all the poeple cursing at Last Hope and still feel the need to talking aout this game in a rude way as shown in the DUX thread. To keep that one clean I'm starting this thread since I'm not going to discuss Last Hope with people who didn't read this posting, not even having played the game. This thread is no offense, it's just stating facts and showing my personal view also since there seems to be an demand.
So, Last Hope polarisates into two sections. The one who enjoying it and the one who don't.
Those people who dislike Last Hope are completly ignoring the people who enoying it. And that's one of the biggest problems here regarding Last Hope. It makes them believe that Last Hope must be a bad game per se but that's not the case. Some people just need to accept that different games have different ways to be fun so there must be some kind of varitiy to make every player pleasent. Manic shooting alone is not enough. Not even just simple R-Type clones.
I recommend to the people who dislike Last hope to commmunicate with people who liking it. It's the only way to get rid of your frustration and to understand why Last Hope is not a bad game per se. It's also favourable to start a thread in the strategy section of this board or just take a look at the stratey guide to understand how the game works and becomes reasonable.
There are also people who calling me arrogant for no reason since LH has been released on DC. I'm just refuse to take criticism from poeple who didn't spent more time then 10min with the game or just didn't play it a all but still trying judging about it. It's the easy way to blame a game or even the dev four your own bad. This is not the way a player should threat any games. This is not the way an adult person should threat anythings. And this attitude is also one on the reason why Shmups are not mainstream. People who playing mainstream games will harldy give shmups a try. When they do this, in most cases, they will enjoying it. To give LH a try is not so easy as the game is pretty hard but with some time it becomes reasonable. This has soemthing to do with LHs inaccessible nature. People who play shmup and participating discussion boards have to be more open about different approaches instead of fighting each other if Cave or Tohou is the better style. Both stsles a good in their own way. Discuss about the differents of those games instead, so both sides can arguing to understand the benifits of the different styles. People should talk on discussion boards and writing reviews of games for telling players why and how a game is enjoybale and not for stating is as good or bad.
Many people thinking Last Hope is impossible to clear, which is not the case as Plasmo proves. It just show who poeple didn't put much time into the game to understand the enemy order and the way to encounter them. Last Hope ist not a blasting action game, so you will need to play the game the way it is meant to be played - tactitcly. Even if you we, the devs, were confused and didn't know what tactical means when making the game and were going in a complete wrong direction with the game as we intenten, you still need to play the game as is meant to be played. Plasmo shows this on the LH DVD better then I ever could. Plasmo is one a of those poeple who complety can make use of Last Hopes gameplay by not just doing the tactics intedend to be in the game. Furthermore Plasmo is able to develop tactics on its own to for being able to clear the game on 1 life. This what Last Hope is about. Tactical approaching, step by step. When you don't like this pacing, you just can quit playing it. No problem with that. You can even say that you dislike the game. I'm fine with that. You can even go on discussion/gaming board and expressing your hate about the game. But there's one thing yuo can't do: Stating the game as a complete faliure/bad per se. Too many people enjoying this game to make this possible. You can go around the internet in evey retro gaming site with a Last hope thread. Which are not only a few sites. Then you will hardly find only one LH thread wihthout several people stating they enjoying Last Hope. My assumention is that from the about 2000 copies of LH DC floating around, 10000 people enjoying the game. That's a fairly good rate for such an inacassible and difficult game which never only one person ask for to be made. Nobody needs LH as much people of this time needing manic shooting. But LH is an alternative so that doesn't matter.
However, to play the game as it meant to be played you will need to accept its rules. Some poeple just can't do this with Last Hope. They just don't accept the games rules even if they understand them. Last Hope may looks kinda like R-Type but it plays completly different. To make a bit clearer what I mean with tactical approaching I will give a few examples.
The main core gameplay element is the ship with beam and 360° pod. You will need to handle that to progress ay further in this game. Unfortnualy many players experience Last Hope like that: You have a tiny ship with tiny shot and you're to slow to encounter all the enemy masses. That's not what Last Hope is about. With Last Hope you have the most powefulliest weps from beginning. Your beam, your movements and your mind. Use them wisely. To give a concrete games sitiuation let's take the first checkpoint of LH. It's the part when flying into the base. On the ground you will find some kind of little soldier shooting at you and some cannons. You can just fly down there with a fully loaded up beam and eliminate them. But then you will be out of defense, because on the roof there are cannons too. Normally you would get immideatly destroyed by those cannons but not in Last Hope. Just rotate the pod into the directions where those cannons are installed. So you have a defense and can also defeat those enemies. But now you get killes by another enemy and you're pod is gone. No problem. Just fly down again and kill those cannons but then just fly back, beacause there's a wall in middle of the room. Takes this wall as a defense to compensate the lack of the pod and then fly up and kill those cannons. Furhtermore, just a few steps ahaead from that there will be some enemy flying from behind into the screen. Normally those enmies are unfair and not pleasent to see. But in LH you just can put the pod into the back of the ship and shooting them. When losing your pod again, you just can point those enemies into a certain direction to makes them crushing into walls. This is what makes Last Hope tacticly. In Last Hope when you need a pod to survive you will get a pod. If theres not pod you can use walls as defense. Perfectly fair. The game is full of those defenses and sweet spots you just have to see them. To see them you must feel the need to see them but most of them are pretty obvious anyway. So you may just need to know the existence of those sweet spot to find them. So Last Hope is very different gameplay style then most other shooter, it's just have different rules. That's almost innovative. To the same time it's not what most people want to play. And then again, it's what some people want to play and that's enough to justify this game and it's way to be played. So it's just about taste.
Last Hope is something you will harldy experience in any other shooter. You just have to give it a try and get rid of your this it's just a R-Type clone thinking.
Update, title is now in a neutral tone.
