Cave holding a poll for possible XBLA title(sorry if repost)

[dcharlie]

I'm wondering who the main bulk of people were that participated in this poll - like, whether they were hardcore pcb collectors. After all, Guwange, ESPrade etc. are perfectly emulated in MAME, but the Yagawa Cave games are only available as pcbs. I'd have loved the check Muchi Muchi Pork and Pink Sweets out, now I can buy a game that's been available for years instead of a new one. Thanks a lot...

yeah, i had the exact same reaction - however, have to look at the bright side. If the other non-MAME'ed games get released we'll hopefully get a nice limited edition a la Death Smiles.

[Elixir]

I don't care about Pink Sweets and I've already played and sold MMP. I wouldn't like to be the one emulating MMP's slowdown. And in terms of old Cave titles, I like Guwange the most. That's why.

I thought about voting for Mushi 1 but then I remembered it had an atrocious scoring system that no sane person likes. Galuda 1's port is fine, and all the other titles are ancient which just made me choose my favorite out of them. I honestly thought DDP would have won due to the popularity it has.

Ah, as opposed to the sane game-long chaining in Guwange

As opposed to,

- stage-long chaining
- buttering up an enemy with piss before shooting them for a bigger multiplier over and over
- destroying a toy robot's rockets for 10 minutes
- using a secondary attack over and over to max out the multiplier before the first midboss has even appeared
- strategically bombing over and over
- child banking the secondary pod with C+A while tapping at a 15KHz fire rate
- fuck it progear's scoring is just bad

That covers pretty much every single game available for voting apart from Galuda which has already had a perfectly fine port like I've said. I voted for Guwange because it has, by far, the best music I have ever heard in any of the Cave games out there. The animation is really well done and it's one of my favorite themes (I'm into stuff like Ghibli, Kurosawa, etc) and I'd like to see what they can do with it, maybe a HD mode or something, maybe even an arrange mode too. Plus having online leaderboards is a definite plus.

Here's a CRAAAAAZY thought.... Maybe instead of moaning about how much Cave games on XBLA are gonna suck maybe you should...oh, I don't know...let them actually release one first?!?! Given that DS is awesome, 5pb screwed up DDP and Cave plans to fix it and either supervise or take Ketsui away from 5pb they've hardly given you reason to suspect SNK-like ports from them. SNK is an embarrassment, we all know it, it's not the same company they used to be.

That said being able to play MS3 online is awesome and Mark of the Wolves is a solid port. KOF 98 on the other hand....but even still, Cave ISN'T SNK last time I checked. So maybe you should stop playing with photoshop and actually wait to see what they're going to give us? Anyone can doctor an image to make it look like crap, maybe you should let Cave show us what they have planned before crucifying them. I dare say it'll look better than your photoshop efforts....

The screenshot which I took is Guwange running in MAME with the built-in Bilinear filtering. MS3 is unplayable online and Garou's netcode is also pretty bad. Here's a CRAAAAZY thought, don't post.

[Danbo]

- stage-long chaining
- buttering up an enemy with piss before shooting them for a bigger multiplier over and over
- destroying a toy robot's rockets for 10 minutes
- using a secondary attack over and over to max out the multiplier before the first midboss has even appeared
- strategically bombing over and over
- child banking the secondary pod with C+A while tapping at a 15KHz fire rate
- fuck it progear's scoring is just bad

i aint got a clue what games you're referring to mostly but all of those apart from pink sweets sound more appealing than game-long chaining. the port for ibara is poor so they should just do that or muchi pork or hell any new game because its something i haven't already played to death.

[Skykid]

- fuck it progear's scoring is just bad

Rubbish, it's sublime.

EDIT: Whoops, didn't mean to re-post that info. Should have read back a bit.

[bcass]

Thinking of the Guwange port some more (and having played it for the past hour or so), Microsoft will probably force them to add a filter to the game. So it will end up looking like this:



And it looks awful compared to not using anything at all. Unless there's room for a revamped version which I hope for, but doubt. SNK's awful ports have proved that you don't need to put any effort into porting a game, just shove a HQ2X filter over something and it's good to go.

Some XBLA games have scanline options (like Castlevania SOTN). Shame that games audio is fucked-up on the XBLA version though...

[bcass]

I'm wondering who the main bulk of people were that participated in this poll - like, whether they were hardcore pcb collectors. After all, Guwange, ESPrade etc. are perfectly emulated in MAME, but the Yagawa Cave games are only available as pcbs. I'd have loved the check Muchi Muchi Pork and Pink Sweets out, now I can buy a game that's been available for years instead of a new one. Thanks a lot...

Yep, I have no doubt in my mind that some tactical voting has possibly taken place here so that PCB values of the current unemulated titles are maintained.

[bcass]

I voted for Guwange because it has, by far, the best music I have ever heard in any of the Cave games out there.

Shame then that the PCB music is horribly compressed. Hopefully they'll use higher quality recordings as released on the official soundtrack CD.

[charlie chong]

Yep, I have no doubt in my mind that some tactical voting has possibly taken place here so that PCB values of the current unemulated titles are maintained.

keep smoking that crack son. the poll result is obviously not just based on western voters
mebbes guwange and esperade were voted for because they are not found very often in japanese game centres these days

[bcass]

the poll result is obviously not just based on western voters

I never said otherwise.

[jonny5]

In that case you'll be happy to know that it is indeed Guwange that's been voted in for XBLA sir!

http://cave-game.cocolog-nifty.com/blog ... -cf28.html

Includes a special message for overseas voters!

see 2 pages ago.....lolz......

Good job shmups, you helped contribute to possible movement on CAVE localizations!

Check it:

http://cave-game.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/

[Kiken]

Thinking of the Guwange port some more (and having played it for the past hour or so), Microsoft will probably force them to add a filter to the game. So it will end up looking like this:

And it looks awful compared to not using anything at all. Unless there's room for a revamped version which I hope for, but doubt. SNK's awful ports have proved that you don't need to put any effort into porting a game, just shove a HQ2X filter over something and it's good to go.

I seriously doubt that Cave still possess the original art assets from Guwange. Therefore the chances of seeing any sort of Guwange 360 mode (akin to DS 360 and Mushi Futari 360) are pretty much nil. I would expect a classic arcade mode (perhaps adding an additional digit to the score) with the graphical options of filtering ON/OFF (maybe a scanline option if were lucky) and an arrange mode with twin-stick style control (as stated earlier, using one analogue to move the character and the other to independently control the option). Of course, replay recording, on-line leaderboards and 2-player co-op over Live.

[Kron]

I shouldn't worry about original art via source as its a piece of cake to extract intact from a dumped rom file.

[Momijitsuki]

Well that's cool and all, hope we get it over here!

But I was a little more interested in

"Death Smiles" was released only for Asia, but the region for "Mushi-hime sama Futari" has not been decided yet. I believe it will be decided around the time of Tokyo Game Show 2009.

There is still hope!~

[Acid King]

keep smoking that crack son. the poll result is obviously not just based on western voters
mebbes guwange and esperade were voted for because they are not found very often in japanese game centres these days

Or it could be that they want versions of the games that can still be played for score. Guwange with another digit or Ra.De. with a valueless (hitting an enemy with it does not yield a point gain, only a multiplier) secondary shot would do that.

[emphatic]

keep smoking that crack son. the poll result is obviously not just based on western voters
mebbes guwange and esperade were voted for because they are not found very often in japanese game centres these days

Or it could be that they want versions of the games that can still be played for score. Guwange with another digit or Ra.De. with a valueless (hitting an enemy with it does not yield a point gain, only a multiplier) secondary shot would do that.

What if they publish Guwange on XBLA and the online score boards are in Japanese like the boards on the PCB? That would be "awesome". An arrange mode with a different scoring mechanic would be awesome though. Chaining through the whole game is bleh.

[Kaspal]

Well that's cool and all, hope we get it over here!

But I was a little more interested in

"Death Smiles" was released only for Asia, but the region for "Mushi-hime sama Futari" has not been decided yet. I believe it will be decided around the time of Tokyo Game Show 2009.

There is still hope!~

you beat me to it... i was just about to quote that same sentence. yeah, theres still hope.

[undamned]

I seriously doubt that Cave still possess the original art assets from Guwange. Therefore the chances of seeing any sort of Guwange 360 mode (akin to DS 360 and Mushi Futari 360) are pretty much nil.

I shouldn't worry about original art via source as its a piece of cake to extract intact from a dumped rom file.

You can't get the original 3-D models used for development out of teh roms.
-ud

[Taylor]

They see me chainin', they hatin'.

I seriously doubt that Cave still possess the original art assets from Guwange.

Why do you seriously doubt a company has backed up relatively small data assets for its products?

[Kron]

I seriously doubt that Cave still possess the original art assets from Guwange. Therefore the chances of seeing any sort of Guwange 360 mode (akin to DS 360 and Mushi Futari 360) are pretty much nil.

I shouldn't worry about original art via source as its a piece of cake to extract intact from a dumped rom file.

You can't get the original 3-D models used for development out of teh roms.
-ud

I never thought that was the question.

[honorless]

Why do you seriously doubt a company has backed up relatively small data assets for its products?

The reason the PSP versions of Princess Crown and Devil Summoner never made it to the US was because Atlus Japan lost the source code to both games.

Obviously, different company, but lost assets aren't exactly uncommon. I'm betting Kiken is right and there's no chance for an "HD Mode" for Guwange. Nasty filtering ahoy!

There is still hope!~

you beat me to it... i was just about to quote that same sentence. yeah, theres still hope.

No, there isn't. Unless you mean hope for an overseas release, because Cave isn't gonna do region-free. I guarantee you. Asada said the same "well the region has not been decided yet" bull about Deathsmiles.

What I bet will happen is that the number of English emails about Futari will be presented to localizers at TGS as a way of saying, "Look, there are people in your country interested in one of our upcoming products. You should license it from us."

...If region-free Futari happens, I will savor every greasy black feather of the crow I eat.

[Momijitsuki]

There is still hope!~

you beat me to it... i was just about to quote that same sentence. yeah, theres still hope.

No, there isn't. Unless you mean hope for an overseas release, because Cave isn't gonna do region-free. I guarantee you. Asada said the same "well the region has not been decided yet" bull about Deathsmiles.

What I bet will happen is that the number of English emails about Futari will be presented to localizers at TGS as a way of saying, "Look, there are people in your country interested in one of our upcoming products. You should license it from us."

...If region-free Futari happens, I will savor every greasy black feather of the crow I eat.

Now why you gotta cast a dark cloud over it all like that?! (╬ ಠ益ಠ)

[MADEIRA STEVE88]

Well if the Beat 'Em Up genre made a come back, lets hope that the SHMUP genre comes back full force *Crosses Fingers* but as long as i get me some SHMUPS im cool. Most of us here either have a JAP360 or use Mame etc. For me i recently got a JAP360 along with RAIDEN IV, RAIDEN FIGHTERS ACES and DEATHSMILES.

I couldn't agree more. Fighting games had essentially been declared formally dead by the media and most current gamers probably couldn't even tell you what the hell a fireball motion was (especially the new Wii demographic). Yet here we with this "dead' genre are and SF 4 was a huge hit, BlazBlue and KOF 12 grabbed alot of attention, Tekken 6 is right around the corner and even obscure fighters like Mark of the Wolves are making mainstream appearances on XBLA. If anything 2009 is actually becoming the year that classic gaming is making a comeback between all the fighetrs and shmups. Look at the volume of shmups coming out across all regions this year...it's not what it was in the Saturn/PSX eras but we've had a pile of shmups released in the last year and things are only looking better for the genre. Especially now that Cave is finally recognizing the international interest in the genre....

Took the words right out of my mouth m8.

[bcass]

They see me chainin', they hatin'.

I seriously doubt that Cave still possess the original art assets from Guwange.

Why do you seriously doubt a company has backed up relatively small data assets for its products?

It happens more often than you might think, even with the bigger companies. Plenty of devcos no longer have their old source code.

*edit* what honorless said.

[undamned]

I shouldn't worry about original art via source as its a piece of cake to extract intact from a dumped rom file.

You can't get the original 3-D models used for development out of teh roms.
-ud

I never thought that was the question.

Kiken was referencing what they did with Deathsmiles where they took the original 3-D models, which had much more detail than the low rez stuff that made it to the PCB, and gave us something way better looking to play on our HD TV's. If you weren't aware, Cave has been using 3-D character models since ESP Ra.De., at least, maybe even further back. Gaijin Punch had a Cave interview where it was mentioned.
-ud

[bcass]

Even if they haven't lost the data, the chances of them having software than can still read that 3D model data is minimal. Sony recently had that problem when they were making Wipeout HD. They had all the track data for all the original tracks but no software to read it.

[Taylor]

I can think of other examples too, but that doesn't mean it's common. I would be more surprised to hear they had lost them than the other way around.

[Elixir]

Now why you gotta cast a dark cloud over it all like that?! (╬ ಠ益ಠ)

The chances are still against us. So far we have 7 retail shmups for the 360, all of which are region locked, except for RFA which is still technically region locked despite being localized.

I seriously doubt that Cave still possess the original art assets from Guwange. Therefore the chances of seeing any sort of Guwange 360 mode (akin to DS 360 and Mushi Futari 360) are pretty much nil. I would expect a classic arcade mode (perhaps adding an additional digit to the score) with the graphical options of filtering ON/OFF (maybe a scanline option if were lucky) and an arrange mode with twin-stick style control (as stated earlier, using one analogue to move the character and the other to independently control the option). Of course, replay recording, on-line leaderboards and 2-player co-op over Live.

Microsoft will obviously force them to add some sort of filter before it gets on the XBLA. Doesn't matter if it looks bad or not, this is what they do, and the results aren't always a good thing. This is why I always bring up Metal Slug 3 because it's hideous. It's up to Asada in what he wants to filter the game with.

When I think about the unported games like Pink Sweets and Muchi Muchi Pork, I really don't think someone would take the time and effort to port those just for an XBLA title. Not only are they more technically advanced, but they would require far greater effort to get up there. It just isn't worth it from a business standpoint. Raiden 4 is 350mbish when installed, so it's not like you have to have a huge game before classifying as a retail title.

[bcass]

Microsoft will obviously force them to add some sort of filter before it gets on the XBLA.

Where do you get this idea from that it is Microsoft that force developers to add the filters?

When I think about the unported games like Pink Sweets and Muchi Muchi Pork, I really don't think someone would take the time and effort to port those just for an XBLA title. Not only are they more technically advanced, but they would require far greater effort to get up there. It just isn't worth it from a business standpoint. Raiden 4 is 350mbish when installed, so it's not like you have to have a huge game before classifying as a retail title.

If Cave had no intention of porting Pink Sweets or MMP had either been voted top then they would have exempt them from the voting. They didn't exempt them so they would obviously consider them as viable ports to XBLA.

[2dvertical]

Well that's cool and all, hope we get it over here!

But I was a little more interested in

"Death Smiles" was released only for Asia, but the region for "Mushi-hime sama Futari" has not been decided yet. I believe it will be decided around the time of Tokyo Game Show 2009.

There is still hope!~

you beat me to it... i was just about to quote that same sentence. yeah, theres still hope.

off topic for a second, why is it that the games are region locked in the first place. Being a ps3 owner I have read all the jargin about how cave went with xbox b/c of ease and developer kit cost etc. But what is the reason/cost/explanation of the region lock of the game for the xbox? Do they just not want westerners to own the game? And when they put xbl titles up will they be for jpxbox only?

[bcass]

There is no region locking for any XBLA titles (not even the Japanese-only titles). As for your other question, the best guess is that they region-lock retail titles in the hope that they can sell the publishing rights to those games in other territories at a later date.