RQ: Sengoku Ace random (?) elements

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Veracity
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RQ: Sengoku Ace random (?) elements

Post by Veracity »

The fourth and final stages seem to have two entirely distinct possible bosses. Fooling around in stage 4 practise, I got the impression I was always getting one boss if I held a charge shot from the end of the last popcorn wave, and the other if I fired on empty air for a couple of seconds first. Is there a reliably reproducible way of choosing which appears?

Would be interested to know the same for the final stage last form (usually South Park Satan, but something else came up a couple of times). Less likely to matter, to be honest, since I usually wipe out by 'have at all the mid-bosses again, all at once' anyway, if not earlier, but it'll be worth knowing if I can ever consistently reach it.

Oh, and I strongly suspect this is a 'no', but is there any way to affect what comes out of the nine buildings immediately before the boss on one of the random-order levels? I've seen anything from a screen full of P and B pick-ups to nothing but coins.

Somewhat tangentially, are there points where rank control through deliberate powering down is considered wise? Haven't consciously attempted it, but some of the bosses seem distinctly scarier at full power.

Version is PS2 PAL Samurai Aces, if it matters, though I could use MAME instead if there's any reason to.
Andy 5
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Post by Andy 5 »

Oh yeah, are you referring to the raccoon-dog figure that pops out sometimes instead of the Satan-like guy? That's happened to me a few times too. It startled the hell outta me the first time it happened.
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FIL
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Post by FIL »

I've been playing this on the PS2 lately and I think the level 4 boss is chosen based on rank.

I played through level 4 in practice mode fully powered up and then again with no powerups at all. When fully powered up the yellow boss always appeared, without powerups the red boss always appeared.
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Zebra Airforce
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Post by Zebra Airforce »

Isn't the level four boss based on which side of the screen you are sitting on?
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FIL
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Post by FIL »

Actually you might be right.
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stuminator
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Post by stuminator »

I thought the rando-bosses in Psikyo games were based on your location on the screen.
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professor ganson
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Post by professor ganson »

I've only gotten the deep blue level 4 so far. Is level 7 the final level? How tough is it?
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CIT
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Post by CIT »

Stage 4 boss and stage 7 boss are entirely random. There is no way to control which one you get.

Same for the items from houses in one of the first 3 stages.

Rank: I think it's always best to have max power, the added firepower makes a big difference, and rank increase is based on lives in stock, iirc.

@Ganson: Stage 7 is the final stage, and it's not hard if you know what you're doing. Second to last boss of the stage is kinda tough though.
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professor ganson
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Post by professor ganson »

Thanks, CIT. Your score is awesome, btw.

One other question for anyone who cares to answer:

Is playing without the special shot a real option? If I use auto fire with my PCB or MAME, I lose the special shot. So far the regular shot seems powerful enough for everything I've faced, but I've only been through the first four stages.
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FIL
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Post by FIL »

I find its good for firing an opening salvo at a boss but other than that it takes so long to charge that you might as well have just used your main shot.
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professor ganson
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Post by professor ganson »

Yeah, crazy charging time. Thanks, FIL. This game is definitely rough around the edges with auto power downs and questionable specials, but I actually like the graphics quite a bit-- more than Gunbird's for sure.
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FIL
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Post by FIL »

The mix of japanese folklore and technology is really cool. I just thought of a name for that style, "shintopunk"
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freddiebamboo
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Post by freddiebamboo »

professor ganson wrote:Thanks, CIT. Your score is awesome, btw.

One other question for anyone who cares to answer:

Is playing without the special shot a real option? If I use auto fire with my PCB or MAME, I lose the special shot. So far the regular shot seems powerful enough for everything I've faced, but I've only been through the first four stages.
The special shot is needed for quick kills on several of the later boss parts.

I don't think using rapid would balance out the loss of the special for the last few stages. I only play as Ain though, so I don't know tactics for the other ships prof.
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professor ganson
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Post by professor ganson »

Thanks freddie-- now I just need to figure out what these characters are called. Which one is Ain? I found the following review at EmuChrist Forums, and it identifies the characters but doesn't use the name "Ain" at all. So far my highest score is with Kenn-O. Here's the review:

This is the first game that Psikyo ever made and surprise surprise, it was a shooter. However this is a shooter with a twist. It takes place during shogunate in Japan and it features samurais and ninja's riding bomber planes. You can choose between a ninja, a monk, a genius dog, a samurai, a tomboy priestess, and a wacky inventor. You basically have a main weapon and a bomb. You get powerups along the way that increase the firepower of your main weapon and it even adds a third weapon that gets shot out everytime you use your main weapon (depending on how powered up you are). You can also charge your main weapon and release a huge blast. But this takes a long time to charge up and you cannot attack while charging it up so be careful. However, this is unlimited. Your bomb weapon will usually make you invincible while dishing out a devastating attack. You can collect more bombs along the way in each level. Also, you play each level at random except for the last few levels. And after you beat the game the first time through, you will have to start all over and do it again to get the "true" ending. The enemies range from older ships, to monsters to samurais and ninja and there are also samurai midbosses that you have to fight. Now onto the characters:

Jane the ninja: She flies a contraption that looks like it was taken straight out of Kitty Hawk. It looks like a glider made out of bamboo. Her regular shot are blue daggers that go straight ahead with very little widespread range. Her charged up shot shoots a blue ninja star. It doesn't take long to charge for this but it is very weak. For her bomb special, she goes into the middle of the screen, spins around and releases a bunch of pink flowers. She is invincible while she is doing this. When her regular shot is powered up, she will throw bombs. It has good widespread range but it doesn't go very far in terms of distance.

Turbo monk Tengai: He flies on a huge white bird. His regular shot are a bunch of green lasers that go straight ahead. As he gets more powerups, he gets a some more widespread range with this. For his charged up shot she shoots two big prayer beads that move around the whole screen pretty much. This does a lot of damage, but it take a long time to charge this up. His bomb special is where he shoots some white kanji straight ahead of him, but he's protected by a prayer necklace so he is invincible. When his regular shot is powered up, he will shoot prayer beads along with his green lasers.

Ultra genius Kenn-0: This genius dog files a very advanced Japanese bomber plane. His regular shot are two blue lasers, and when it gets powered up, the lasers shoot like a 5 way laser covering from each 45 degree angle of each side and everything in between. For his charge shot, he shoots out 5 steel bracelets that stay in the same place. These bracelets will damage anything that touches them and it will protect you from bullets as well. For his bomb special, a fire will surround his ship making him invincible and he will shoot a five-way fire laser attack damage most things on the screen. When his regular shot gets powered up, he will also shoot out steel bracelets.

Flush the Samurai: He flies a green plane with a large propeller on the back. His shot is a bunch of green lasers. As this gets powered up, he will get intermediate range like Tengai with his lasers. For his charge shot, he will shoot a bunch of fire arrows. This takes a while to charge. For his bomb special, he will turn his plane upside down and shoot a shadow image of his plane to attack the enemies. This has limited widespread range but it travels the distance to the end of the screen. He is invincible when he is turning his plane around. When his regular shot gets powered up, Flush will shoot missles along with his regular shot. These missles will be shot rapidly unlike Tengai's prayer beads. However the missiles are smaller whereas the prayer bead are much larger.

Holy tomboy Miko: She flies a red plane with two propellers in the front and two separate fins on the back. Her primary weapon are blue lasers. When this gets powered up, she gets intermediate range like Tengai and Flush. When she charges her charge shot and releases it, she will shoot out a ton of red blocks that have kanji written on them. She can also shoot her primary weapon when the red kanji sqaures are being shot out. Her bomb special is where she shoots a little red canister in the centre of the screen and then the canister explodes into a huge yellow energy square that has some kanji written on it. It will damage anything that touches it. But Miko receives no invinciblity when she shoots this out. When her regular shot is charged up, she will also shoot out white kanji squares that will act like guided missles.

Gadget Gen: He flies a white plane that looks like it was taken out of a Star Wars movie. It has four wooden barrels on it as well and four lasers. His regular shot are two blue lasers that attack from each end of his ship, but they do not attack from the middle of his ship. As this gets powered up, they become more powerful and pushed a little further each way but he does not gain any additional blue lasers. For his charge shot, he shoots two huge yellow sparks that hover around the screen much like Tengai's charge shot. His bomb special consists of throwing out four huge robots that scream and then they try to bomb the entire area. He is not invincible when he does this and there's quite a bit of lag between when the robots come out and when they actually bomb the place. Be very careful. It isn't that powerful really. It's good to use where there are a ton of enemies on the screen. When he is powered up, he will shoot lightning bolts just outside of where the blue lasers come out. At full power, he will shoot even more bolts giving him probably the best widespread range in the game.

Graphics: Excellent graphics for 1993! Ships are nicely detailed and the ninjas look cool.

Music: Atmospheric Japanese music that fits in perfectly with the samurai/ninja theme. Relaxing music, which goes well with the pace of the game.

Gameplay: The game goes by very slow and the music compliments the relaxed gameplay. It isn't an insane shooter like you would expect from the Cave franchise. Eventhough the game is slow, it can get pretty intense. During boss fights, sometimes the screen can be littered with bullets. The weapon system is very good and the amount of characters just adds to the variety. It's really wonderful. The boards are very short but the bosses are designed well.

Difficulty: It is easy, but the second time through it becomes pretty hard. The boss battles in the last few stages can be quite difficult for a novice. Also, the fact that the levels are random tweaks with the difficulty of the bosses. The turtle boss may be easy if you fight him first, but he gets really really hard if he's one of the last few bosses that you fight!

Fun Factor: Very fun game. Highly recommended to shooter fans. It has a nice old school feel, and for some reason it even reminded me of the 1942 games but much much cooler. Replay value is very high since the levels are very short. Even the boss battles are fun.

Rating:
8/10 - Great shooter by Psikyo and an amazing title for their first effort. Unfortunately, most of their other games will pretty much be carbon copies of this formula.
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freddiebamboo
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Post by freddiebamboo »

Ain is the green ship prof. Taken from a post by CIT:

The characters in Sengoku Ace are:

Top row:

1. Jane
2. Tengai
3. Kenoumaru

Bottom row:

1. Koyori
2. Ain
3. Gennai

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Veracity
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Post by Veracity »

Ain = Flush, the one whose charge shot immortalizes some poor chap being forced to yell "Samurai Swoooooord!" into a mic with suitable bombast.

Re: review - easy!? Relative, I suppose - I guess it's the easiest Psikyo formula game to loop by a fair margin, and the bullet sprays are quite sparse and never do anything not geometrically intuitive, but there's still plenty of the easily-recognizable sprays you don't so much dodge as either know exactly where not to be, or die immediately. Probably the main thing that prevents it being really a Sengoku palette-swap of Aero Fighters, imo. The last stage is oddly simple, though, I think more so than five or six, especially if you don't mind bombing out the first salvo of the penultimate boss.

Re: charge shots - what are you playing it on, professor? The PS2 release can map rapid fire and shot separately, and you can do the same in MAME with the added benefit of configurable frequency (either internally in MAME32 Plus! or externally with customizable drivers or something like xpadder). As noted earlier in thread, their usefulness is character dependent and always pretty poor, but I wouldn't go without them, given the choice. As far as I recall, auto power down is based on shots fired, so you can conserve shot power by using them to clear popcorn swarms or high-durability targets. Since most have a delay before connecting during which you're firing again, you can more or less skip some bosses' final phases by releasing a charge shot just before they start. I mostly use Gennai, whose bouncy charge shot can also often break pick-apart boss segments on the opposite side of the screen without having to get over there. He's too fast and has a horrific bomb delay, though.

Whatever happened to pick-apart bosses when they were designing Dragon Blaze? I thought they were something of a standard formula feature.
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