RS-Revisiting an old friend
RS-Revisiting an old friend
Dusted off the Sat again, off course Radiant Silvergun was fired up almost immediately. This game never ceases to amaze. What are your impressions from a long break from RS?
Last edited by lawnspic on Wed Dec 31, 2008 5:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Iron Maiden: "It was dead, but alive at the same time."
Re: RS-Revisting an old friend
"Wow I forgot how hard this was!" Is generally the first thought on my mind, and often when I die some time within the first few minutes.lawnspic wrote:Dusted off the Sat again, off course Radiant Silvergun was fired up almost immediately. This game never ceases to amaze. What are your impressions from a long break from RS?
"I think Ikaruga is pretty tough. It is like a modern version of Galaga that some Japanese company made."
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lynchesque
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Dragoforce
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I assume you mean current-gen? The PS3 and Wii have been out for two years now and the 360 for three years.John845 wrote:My thoughts: "Why can't you be ported onto next gen systems so me along with the rest of the world can enjoy it."
Anyway if you don't have a problem with emulation, RSG does work perfectly with SSF. Just an FYI. I would definitely buy the game if it came out for the PS2 for a reasonable price, though, it's worth $50.
"I think Ikaruga is pretty tough. It is like a modern version of Galaga that some Japanese company made."
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henry dark
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Yea I mean current gen. I've tried emulation and you need a pretty beefy computer to run SSF, which is something I don't have. And yes, I'd buy the game in an instant if it came out on the PS2 as well.kengou wrote: I assume you mean current-gen? The PS3 and Wii have been out for two years now and the 360 for three years.
Anyway if you don't have a problem with emulation, RSG does work perfectly with SSF. Just an FYI. I would definitely buy the game if it came out for the PS2 for a reasonable price, though, it's worth $50.
Isn't the sound still pretty funky in emulation?
RS is my favorite game of all time. I remember once playing it for the first time in several months, and after beating one intense boss perfectly (second gollet) I actually had to stand up and pump my fist for a minute. I could talk about how much I love it all day.
RS is my favorite game of all time. I remember once playing it for the first time in several months, and after beating one intense boss perfectly (second gollet) I actually had to stand up and pump my fist for a minute. I could talk about how much I love it all day.
Not that I've noticed, seemed fine to me. Maybe it wasn't the greatest arcade-quality, I don't know, I'm not an audiophile, but I could hear all the music and sound effects fineSamIAm wrote:Isn't the sound still pretty funky in emulation?
"I think Ikaruga is pretty tough. It is like a modern version of Galaga that some Japanese company made."
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henry dark
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null1024
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Hmm... maybe this computer will run it in MAME at more 100%... damn, 70% and a slideshow.
And then I die still. I suck at RSG.
But it still, somehow looks FUCKING BEAUTIFUL.
PS: I can't get it to work in SSF or anything, it crashes when I load up the ISO.
And then I die still. I suck at RSG.
But it still, somehow looks FUCKING BEAUTIFUL.
PS: I can't get it to work in SSF or anything, it crashes when I load up the ISO.
Come check out my website, I guess. Random stuff I've worked on over the last two decades.
LOL... someone else loves that game to?to play Soukyugurentai
Damn Tim, you know there are quite a few Americans out there who still lives in tents due to this shitty economy, and you're dropping loads on a single game which only last 20 min. Do you think it's fair? How much did you spend this time?
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henry dark
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I never managed to get SSF to load ISOs. Try running it directly from a CD.null1024 wrote:Hmm... maybe this computer will run it in MAME at more 100%... damn, 70% and a slideshow.
And then I die still. I suck at RSG.
But it still, somehow looks FUCKING BEAUTIFUL.
PS: I can't get it to work in SSF or anything, it crashes when I load up the ISO.
Probably not, no.Shelcoof wrote:Would you buy it for the PS2 if it was 200$?John845 wrote: Yea I mean current gen. I've tried emulation and you need a pretty beefy computer to run SSF, which is something I don't have. And yes, I'd buy the game in an instant if it came out on the PS2 as well.
Just curious
okay ... so after a combined 300 hours play time, and about 4 years in my possession i think i'm ready to give an in depth look at silvergun.
start with the good:
an amazing story. both in the game, and of the game... RS mastermind (and later, ikaruga and gradius V mastermind) hiroshi iuchi was never a game producer. being one of the initial employees right from treasure's humble beginnings, he was one of their artists, and produced the backgrounds for gunstar heroes and a slew of other treasure games. being a massive shmup freak, he eventually became disheartened with his work, as he saw treasure making a name for themselves with side-scrolling action titles, and he was aching to work on a shmup project. so he left the company in 1997 and tried taking his own shmup project idea to as many companies that would meet with him. but being the late 90's, what with playstations, ridge racer, and so forth, nobody could see any point in making a 2-dimensional shooter. they weren't making money, and would soon see a dramatic loss of popularity. after 9 months of getting nowhere and bills mounting up, treasure president maegawa said that if it meant that much he should come back to treasure and make his game. and so it was born... and the storyboard itself is a reflection of iuchi's feelings towards the game industry of that time. how games, unlike movies or music, had become a disposable pop culture. whereas their philosophy was that games were meant to be treasured. it was a homage to the past where games were meant to be played, and replayed, and replayed. just as the story of silvergun endlessly plays out. and along with the storyboard, the radical scoring systems, he even drew many of the flat 2D backgrounds pixel by pixel. what you're playing is one man's life-long dream, and the effort that gone into making stands out even now.
ambition. there are very few companies or people whose debut entry into the STG genre that are so audacious. RSG isn't just about what it brings to the genre, but also what it's left out. there is only one ship you can use. there are no powerups. there are no medals that fall down the screen. instead you have a ship that has a total of seven weapons that you can flip between when and wherever. the power levels of which are tied into how well you can score with those weapons. and the scoring itself is based on a puzzle-like system of matching enemies in patterns of three based on their colour. in a lot of ways, it marks the genre's change from old to the new-school; and is quite an important game just from a historical point of view, along with DDP of the previous year. by trying to give a depth and a level replayability where improvements in skill-set were so tangible they created a milestone. even something like getting points for scratching your ship against enemies and backgrounds, which plays a very minute part of silvergun's scoring mechanics, became the sole inspiration for titles like psyvariar years later.
made for maniacs. there's no way of getting round the fact that silvergun was made purely for the hardcore shmup fanbase. the scoring system was obtuse, and if you couldn't level your weapons up, you had no chance. some can say that this works against the game's favour, and they may not be wrong, but it's important that there was a game specifically made to cater to that market. a tribute to the fans that were keeping the genre alive at that point.
design. being a treasure game, it's packed to the brim with fantastic boss fights. many of which were over-the-top in their traditional style. and the graphics they pulled out of that hardware are simply amazing for that time. a favourite moment of mine is playing 2A... as you slow down, and the background begins to slow with you, a transparent electrical grid is displayed over the cityscape beneath you, all in a dark sombre blue palette. before you're speeding away, the ground rotating and disappearing into the distance, and you're faced with a huge boss with a full moon as the backdrop. technically, artisticly, and in terms of enemy placement and design, it feels like one jaw-dropping moment after another. or the 2E boss where everything suddenly becomes rez-like wireframe graphics. or 5A... one epic boss fight, obviously in tribute to stage 3 of the original r-type, where missiles flew past that were the length of the screen. you think it can't get much worse, then suddenly the arms of the boss ship contract. you either found yourself neatly tucked into a gap, or you were dead. can it get worse? oh yeah... then the whole level begins rotating... couple all of this with the heroic orchestral score, and the game plays out like an epic grandiose battle. moments of which will stick with you a long time after you turn off the machine.
so i've got a lot of love for this game. now let's talk about the bad:
weapon bonus for the C button. along with chaining the enemies, you get small bonuses of 10k for using your weapons efficiently. the trouble with the C shot is that you need to fire four shots (of two bullets each), that connect with enemies *without* you letting go of the button before they connect with an enemy. try exceeding a score of 50.110.000 on the practice stage, and see how frustrating it can be. it would have been better if the conditions were the same as the A or B weapon, where it only resets if a bullets leaves the screen (or both sides of the shot aren't connecting with an enemy). there is also a slight unbalance with the weapon bonuses which will mean a reliance on the A+B weapon for large portions of the game, and other weapons going largely unused.
boss milking. there are a number of safe spots (or positions where you have to make very little movement to survive). specifically 3C boss, 2D boss, 4A boss, 4B bouncing orbs, 4D boss, and 6A boss. some are worse than others. and i would also mention the 4C B+C trick for numerous added weapon bonuses. people's opinions may vary on how much of a negative impact they have on the flow of the game (i actually quite enjoy taking a breather at 4B), but scoring techniques which would normally net very few points (scratching; A+B bonuses) can drag on, if you're the type of player who wants to maximise every scoring oppurtunity; as well as circumventing the difficulty level.
chaining. now i will say that chaining isn't as convoluted or intricate as it may first appear. and having seven different weapons, each with a different type of range, means there's a lot of freedom. there are no strict timing constraints. and working out the best possible patterns is usually just a case of a bit of maths. the RBY secret chain of 10k (and 20/30/40/etc for subsequent sets of yellows) can make things a bit deceiving. but while require you to change colour quite often; there are other levels where you may stick to just red, and many enemies are redundant. in some stages, this is actually a good thing, as it requires a good player to leave enemies onscreen, and increase their risk of death; but it isn't true for all levels, such as 4A, where they pose minimal extra danger.
chaining cap. there aren't many stages where your chain will reach the cap of 100k, but there are a couple. the problem here is that, in comparison to ikaruga for example, chains typically (but not always) take longer to reach the maximum. so the loss of points from a death (and therefore the amount of chains needed to reach the maximum afterwards) is very high. whereas in ikaruga they cap at 25k, and only chains needed (plus the larger abundance of chains to begin with). to be fair, this is mainly only an issue on 5A, but you can reach the maximum 100k by the end of a couple of other levels as well.
5A. epic in scope, but demoralising when you start to attack the game for score. because the level is just sooo long, and there are so many red enemies to chain, a good 50% of your entire score can come from this level alone. heart-breaking.
ikaruga, by contrast, has stages where virtually *all* enemies can be chained within the level; there is only one weapon (no unbalancing or levelling up required), chaining boosts score quicker while capping at a lower value, stages are shorter (and weighted quite evenly), and bosses are designed to be killed quickly. but with that said, radiant silvergun has an atmosphere and sense of scale that is missing from ikaruga.
i think you have to take the good with the bad, and look at it all in the context of how and when it was made. no, it's not perfect; but this was their first venture into the genre, and is over a decade old now. how important various aspects of a game are is very individual to the player. but it's a game that deserves it's place in shmup history i think
start with the good:
an amazing story. both in the game, and of the game... RS mastermind (and later, ikaruga and gradius V mastermind) hiroshi iuchi was never a game producer. being one of the initial employees right from treasure's humble beginnings, he was one of their artists, and produced the backgrounds for gunstar heroes and a slew of other treasure games. being a massive shmup freak, he eventually became disheartened with his work, as he saw treasure making a name for themselves with side-scrolling action titles, and he was aching to work on a shmup project. so he left the company in 1997 and tried taking his own shmup project idea to as many companies that would meet with him. but being the late 90's, what with playstations, ridge racer, and so forth, nobody could see any point in making a 2-dimensional shooter. they weren't making money, and would soon see a dramatic loss of popularity. after 9 months of getting nowhere and bills mounting up, treasure president maegawa said that if it meant that much he should come back to treasure and make his game. and so it was born... and the storyboard itself is a reflection of iuchi's feelings towards the game industry of that time. how games, unlike movies or music, had become a disposable pop culture. whereas their philosophy was that games were meant to be treasured. it was a homage to the past where games were meant to be played, and replayed, and replayed. just as the story of silvergun endlessly plays out. and along with the storyboard, the radical scoring systems, he even drew many of the flat 2D backgrounds pixel by pixel. what you're playing is one man's life-long dream, and the effort that gone into making stands out even now.
ambition. there are very few companies or people whose debut entry into the STG genre that are so audacious. RSG isn't just about what it brings to the genre, but also what it's left out. there is only one ship you can use. there are no powerups. there are no medals that fall down the screen. instead you have a ship that has a total of seven weapons that you can flip between when and wherever. the power levels of which are tied into how well you can score with those weapons. and the scoring itself is based on a puzzle-like system of matching enemies in patterns of three based on their colour. in a lot of ways, it marks the genre's change from old to the new-school; and is quite an important game just from a historical point of view, along with DDP of the previous year. by trying to give a depth and a level replayability where improvements in skill-set were so tangible they created a milestone. even something like getting points for scratching your ship against enemies and backgrounds, which plays a very minute part of silvergun's scoring mechanics, became the sole inspiration for titles like psyvariar years later.
made for maniacs. there's no way of getting round the fact that silvergun was made purely for the hardcore shmup fanbase. the scoring system was obtuse, and if you couldn't level your weapons up, you had no chance. some can say that this works against the game's favour, and they may not be wrong, but it's important that there was a game specifically made to cater to that market. a tribute to the fans that were keeping the genre alive at that point.
design. being a treasure game, it's packed to the brim with fantastic boss fights. many of which were over-the-top in their traditional style. and the graphics they pulled out of that hardware are simply amazing for that time. a favourite moment of mine is playing 2A... as you slow down, and the background begins to slow with you, a transparent electrical grid is displayed over the cityscape beneath you, all in a dark sombre blue palette. before you're speeding away, the ground rotating and disappearing into the distance, and you're faced with a huge boss with a full moon as the backdrop. technically, artisticly, and in terms of enemy placement and design, it feels like one jaw-dropping moment after another. or the 2E boss where everything suddenly becomes rez-like wireframe graphics. or 5A... one epic boss fight, obviously in tribute to stage 3 of the original r-type, where missiles flew past that were the length of the screen. you think it can't get much worse, then suddenly the arms of the boss ship contract. you either found yourself neatly tucked into a gap, or you were dead. can it get worse? oh yeah... then the whole level begins rotating... couple all of this with the heroic orchestral score, and the game plays out like an epic grandiose battle. moments of which will stick with you a long time after you turn off the machine.
so i've got a lot of love for this game. now let's talk about the bad:
weapon bonus for the C button. along with chaining the enemies, you get small bonuses of 10k for using your weapons efficiently. the trouble with the C shot is that you need to fire four shots (of two bullets each), that connect with enemies *without* you letting go of the button before they connect with an enemy. try exceeding a score of 50.110.000 on the practice stage, and see how frustrating it can be. it would have been better if the conditions were the same as the A or B weapon, where it only resets if a bullets leaves the screen (or both sides of the shot aren't connecting with an enemy). there is also a slight unbalance with the weapon bonuses which will mean a reliance on the A+B weapon for large portions of the game, and other weapons going largely unused.
boss milking. there are a number of safe spots (or positions where you have to make very little movement to survive). specifically 3C boss, 2D boss, 4A boss, 4B bouncing orbs, 4D boss, and 6A boss. some are worse than others. and i would also mention the 4C B+C trick for numerous added weapon bonuses. people's opinions may vary on how much of a negative impact they have on the flow of the game (i actually quite enjoy taking a breather at 4B), but scoring techniques which would normally net very few points (scratching; A+B bonuses) can drag on, if you're the type of player who wants to maximise every scoring oppurtunity; as well as circumventing the difficulty level.
chaining. now i will say that chaining isn't as convoluted or intricate as it may first appear. and having seven different weapons, each with a different type of range, means there's a lot of freedom. there are no strict timing constraints. and working out the best possible patterns is usually just a case of a bit of maths. the RBY secret chain of 10k (and 20/30/40/etc for subsequent sets of yellows) can make things a bit deceiving. but while require you to change colour quite often; there are other levels where you may stick to just red, and many enemies are redundant. in some stages, this is actually a good thing, as it requires a good player to leave enemies onscreen, and increase their risk of death; but it isn't true for all levels, such as 4A, where they pose minimal extra danger.
chaining cap. there aren't many stages where your chain will reach the cap of 100k, but there are a couple. the problem here is that, in comparison to ikaruga for example, chains typically (but not always) take longer to reach the maximum. so the loss of points from a death (and therefore the amount of chains needed to reach the maximum afterwards) is very high. whereas in ikaruga they cap at 25k, and only chains needed (plus the larger abundance of chains to begin with). to be fair, this is mainly only an issue on 5A, but you can reach the maximum 100k by the end of a couple of other levels as well.
5A. epic in scope, but demoralising when you start to attack the game for score. because the level is just sooo long, and there are so many red enemies to chain, a good 50% of your entire score can come from this level alone. heart-breaking.
ikaruga, by contrast, has stages where virtually *all* enemies can be chained within the level; there is only one weapon (no unbalancing or levelling up required), chaining boosts score quicker while capping at a lower value, stages are shorter (and weighted quite evenly), and bosses are designed to be killed quickly. but with that said, radiant silvergun has an atmosphere and sense of scale that is missing from ikaruga.
i think you have to take the good with the bad, and look at it all in the context of how and when it was made. no, it's not perfect; but this was their first venture into the genre, and is over a decade old now. how important various aspects of a game are is very individual to the player. but it's a game that deserves it's place in shmup history i think
Last edited by jpj on Sun May 24, 2009 7:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
RegalSin wrote:Videogames took my life away like the Natives during colonial times.
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henry dark
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jpj- well written mate.
On my Saturn, I only ever put time into it was in Arcade mode, where everything came down to memorisation and careful, steady progression.
Now I'm thinking about going back to it and doing it on Saturn mode, forgetting the chaining, just blasting the shit out of everything, and basically just trying to enjoy it in a different way.
On my Saturn, I only ever put time into it was in Arcade mode, where everything came down to memorisation and careful, steady progression.
Now I'm thinking about going back to it and doing it on Saturn mode, forgetting the chaining, just blasting the shit out of everything, and basically just trying to enjoy it in a different way.
