Senko no Ronde impressions

Cthulhu · Post by **Cthulhu** » Sat May 21, 2005 4:22 pm

I got a nice little surprise when I went up to an arcade called Leisure Land with my friends tonite - they had Senko no Ronde in! I of course wasted no time in giving it a shot...

How is it? Well, it's not a shmup. Plain and simple, it's not. I've heard the phrase "a shmup with fighting game elements" used to describe it a lot, but I think "Virtual On with shmup elements" would be a lot more accurate. You and your opponent are floating on a wide, flat 2D plane and shoot at each other with a variety of weapons - and while many of them do spray lots of bullets, you each have a fairly long life meter, a "power gauge" (much like in Street Fighter and the like, used to see how many special attacks you can use), and you can move freely in any direction you like.

I'm getting ahead of myself. You start off by picking one of six characters (there are seven stickers for the characters on the cabinet, but I could only choose from six) and then a "mode" for them. The modes are just "A" and "B," basically. I'm not sure what the difference is, as I didn't try anyone out in B mode. Maybe later.

You then proceed to fight one opponent at a time in a duel upon the afforementioned 2D plane. All the levels I played on were open and flat - no obstacles. You have three buttons - attack 1, attack 2, and dash. Attack 1 is generally your small, basic gun, 2 is some sort of semi-tracking weapon that takes time to reload, and dash... well, makes you dash. If you press attacks 1 and 2 together, you do a special attack and use up a little of your power meter. You can do additional "moves" by pressing directions then attack 1 and 2 as well - each character seems to have around three special attacks. Pressing dash when not pressing a direction makes you raise a little energy shield which blocks any (and all) attacks, but drains your power gauge quite quickly.

You automatically face your opponent at (almost) all times, unlike Virutal On. If you stop shooting for a second, you turn towards your opponent (if you just keep firing, sometimes you stay facing away from them) or if you dash then shoot you turn as you fire. If you close in on your opponent, rather than fire, you do a short 2 or 3 hit combo attack. If you charge your power meter to full then press all three buttons, you go into "boss mode."

Boss mode makes some sort of large weapon frame (often a ship) appear and attach to your character, and makes you fire a LOT more bullets. Since your opponent stays the same small size, most of them go off in random directons and get nowhere near them, but it looks neat anyway. If you spray your bullets well and hit your opponent a lot, you can inflict quite a bit of damage in this mode. Note that since you're so much larger, your oppnent can hit you quite easily as well. You have a separate life bar for boss mode, but some damage does carry over into your normal life bar when boss mode ends.

Dodging all the bullets fired at you is pretty difficult, especially since most characters have at least one semi-homing attack, so duels don't drag out too long. "Boss mode" is neat but since some of the damage carries over into your normal life bar and it takes your entire power meter, it seems to be most useful when you're almost dead. The game really does feel a lot like an overhead view Virutal On, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

I enjoyed playing it, but I only got to play against the CPU... which made it quite a bit less fun than it could have been. I think Senko would be a really fun game to play against other people, but as with VO (and fighting games) the CPU isn't too much fun to fight against. A Dreamcast release of this game seems pretty much inevitable, so if you have friends who might play you, it could be a worthwhile purchase. If you'd always end up playing it alone... it's a bit more questionable. Fun overall though. Hopefully there will be someone to play against next time I go there.

black mariah · Post by **black mariah** » Sat May 21, 2005 4:58 pm

Sounds more like Cannon Spike than Virtual On.

Cthulhu · Post by **Cthulhu** » Sat May 21, 2005 5:01 pm

In Cannon Spike you fight against more than one opponent though... here it's always one-on-one.

Thunder Force · Post by **Thunder Force** » Sat May 21, 2005 5:02 pm

Sounds good.

We'll keep discussions about this game on Shmups Chat for the time being even if it's not really a shmup (consideration for the folks at G.Rev... they might need support for a DC release

) at least for a while.

Cthulhu · Post by **Cthulhu** » Sat May 21, 2005 5:10 pm

Thunder Force wrote:Sounds good.

We'll keep discussions about this game on Shmups Chat for the time being even if it's not really a shmup (consideration for the folks at G.Rev... they might need support for a DC release ) at least for a while.

Well, we knew it wouldn't be a shmup, but it's way less shmuppy than I was expecting. The loads of bullets look shmup-like at least!

*Claps for G.Rev* Keep em' coming!

Kiken · Post by **Kiken** » Sat May 21, 2005 5:28 pm

Cthulhu wrote:
Thunder Force wrote:Sounds good.

We'll keep discussions about this game on Shmups Chat for the time being even if it's not really a shmup (consideration for the folks at G.Rev... they might need support for a DC release ) at least for a while.
Well, we knew it wouldn't be a shmup, but it's way less shmuppy than I was expecting. The loads of bullets look shmup-like at least!

*Claps for G.Rev* Keep em' coming!

Well, Under Defeat looks like it's coming together nicely. Sorta like a Tate-screen version of Zero Gunner 2 (you pilot helicopters and are attacking contemporary style military targets), but the playmechanics surrounding each of the two copter types seem to be based off of Volk's Helicopter (from Sonic Wings Special):
Type 1: The helicopter rotates slightly in the direction you're moving (move left, and your shots will swing to the left about 30 degrees)
Type 2: The helicopter rotates slightly in the opposite direction of movement (move left and your shots will swing to the right about 30 degrees)

jp · Post by jp » Sat May 21, 2005 6:15 pm

Sounds awesome. Can't wait for the DC port.

KBZ · Post by **KBZ** » Sat May 21, 2005 7:16 pm

a reliable source has told a less reliable source to tell this guy I know to tell me to tell you that this game is definately coming out on DC.

Even if G rev doesn't announce it, I"m sure it wont take too much effort to convince them otherwise. Many people are going to want this game badly.

peace,

Kingbuzzo.

Guardians Knight · Post by **Guardians Knight** » Mon May 23, 2005 11:20 am

anychance of some pictures or footage of the game lads? cheers gents

llaoyllakcuf · Post by **llaoyllakcuf** » Mon May 23, 2005 11:32 am

official site:
http://www.grev.co.jp/ronde/index.html

some videos:
http://am.sega.jp/utop/closeup/senkoronde_06.html
http://click-stick.com/game/ronde/video.htm

captain ahar · Post by **captain ahar** » Mon May 23, 2005 3:16 pm

hot damn that looks fun.

gameoverDude · Post by **gameoverDude** » Tue May 24, 2005 3:35 am

black mariah wrote:Sounds more like Cannon Spike than Virtual On.

I was thinking more like Psychic Force 2012 from the video I saw of it- only with some more intense bullet hell attacks mixed in. Now that intro BGM is some great stuff.

Want this game badly? I sure do.

icepick · Post by **icepick** » Tue May 24, 2005 4:14 am

gameoverDude wrote:Now that intro BGM is some great stuff.

I agree! The way that the whole intro flows is really appealing to me.

I noted today that they have a fresh batch of videos on the Sega AM "replay theatre" page since the last time that I checked, but I'm not certain that I want to view any more of the game before it hits the DC. Maybe I'll watch one with Fabian, just as sort of a teaser... tomorrow at noon, when it's two in the morning in Japan. That's considerate, right?

... sort of?