Zaarock wrote:
5. Dunno, I got used to it pretty quick but at first died a few times because I was trying to dodge stuff by flying at the edge of the screen. I feel like I'm dodging stuff easier with the rayforce ship, probably cause its faster and you dont need to worry about switching between shot and laser.
The problem I'm finding with the zoomed in perspective is that it has a tendancy to make certain points in the game feel hellishly claustrophobic. I also think they've rebalanced some damage settings here and there and reworked the percentage of Special Weapon accumulation (it seems like you can fill the SW meter faster than in the original.. which I had just been playing the day before).
Don't know if anyone else is seeing this, but the leaderboards are screwed up too and only seem to be displaying the top 20 entries or so before nothing but a bunch of empty lines. And this game updated as soon as I booted it up... great job Taito/Squeenix!
I'm seeing the leaderboard screw-up, too. I was wondering if that was just me or... Well, turns out that bit is borked, too.
As usual, Squenix/Taito are running both hot and cold with this release. Faux widescreen (seriously?!), leaderboard issues, and the fact that we waited a good bit for this game to show up on XBL marketplace leave much to grumble about.
Aside from that, I found the game to be pretty fun! Definitely a good thing, since I'll be practicing as soon as I sate my Mirror's Edge obsession. Also, I'm really stinky at this game, so naturally the achievements are currently unachievable for me.
Well, unless I use Continues, that is. Blech.
I wish I spent that moolah on Zeno Clash or Death by Cube, instead...
Gamertag: IceCoffin
I'm as invisible as Battle Garegga's bullets!
Basically, Sony wouldn't allow the distribution of the game with a 4:3 mode included, and I'm guessing it was excluded so nobody feels like they're left out (and to avoid PS3/360 fanboy wars). This guy helped design the game so I'll take his word for it. Of course Taito isn't going to publicly announce something like this themselves.
edit: unsurprisingly he's deleted the twitter comment, here it is below:
If you scroll a little past the blank lines in the leaderboard, eventually a dialog box will pop up and it'll load the next 20 ranked players. There seems to be blank lines/pages for every 20 players. And for some reason, you can only download replays by sorting by ship first. Top 10 players for each ship as well, it seems.
Kron wrote:The Faux widescreen zoom really is crap, I was amazed how much of the first boss was missing visually.
Yeah - not only chopped but also stretched, witness the squashed planet in the intro.
Yeah, this is bullshit - the planet wasn't that squashed in the videos!
I was so wrong to think that they really changed the game according to screen ratio. I'll eat my words now.
TodayIsForgotten wrote:How much better does the game look than the arcade version? I've been playing alot of raystorm lately but undecided on this "remake."
It does look a hell of lot cleaner than the System 11(12?)/PS1 rev. I do agree with Zaarock in that the enemy projectiles are easier to see. Due to the zoomed in screen, it does feel really weird in comparison to the original though... plus, the stretching has a tendancy to make the auto-centering a bit more "lethal" in places (be really careful when and where you chose to stop moving during certain bullet patterns).
monkeyman wrote:Just wondering if anyone can fill me in on the details:
How much of stage 1 do you see in the demo? Was the tank the boss or just the half way boss??
Is this indicative of later stage length?
Does the enemy design get more interesting?
I see from a previous post that extra mode offers different enemy placement, is this change pretty radical or is it just the occasional replaced ship or a few extra fire patterns?
Also, is it easy to get used to the perspective?
1. yeah, the tank is the stage 1 boss.
2. The stages do get a bit longer, there are 7 of them.
3. I'd say it gets pretty interesting after Stage 3.
4. Most of the time there are no enemies in the same patterns on extra mode and there are some different bullet patterns. The bosses are also pretty different from normal. For example in Extra the Stage 4 boss acts as a carrier and you mostly fight small ships and drones it sends at you, while in normal you dodge lasers and other weapons it has. The most difference in the whole stage design seemed to be on stage 7
5. Dunno, I got used to it pretty quick but at first died a few times because I was trying to dodge stuff by flying at the edge of the screen. I feel like I'm dodging stuff easier with the rayforce ship, probably cause its faster and you dont need to worry about switching between shot and laser.
Seems like it may be worth picking up after all. Guess the demo isn't really selling the game very well!
The lack of 4:3 ratio is annoying however, as if the game is stretched that can't help with the viewpoint issues I'm having.
Does that twitter post explain why Sony didn't want a 4:3 option included? (I can't read Japanese) Just curious what reasoning they would have for not giving an option to play it in it's native aspect ratio.
monkeyman wrote:Just wondering if anyone can fill me in on the details:
How much of stage 1 do you see in the demo? Was the tank the boss or just the half way boss??
Is this indicative of later stage length?
Does the enemy design get more interesting?
I see from a previous post that extra mode offers different enemy placement, is this change pretty radical or is it just the occasional replaced ship or a few extra fire patterns?
Also, is it easy to get used to the perspective?
1. yeah, the tank is the stage 1 boss.
2. The stages do get a bit longer, there are 7 of them.
3. I'd say it gets pretty interesting after Stage 3.
4. Most of the time there are no enemies in the same patterns on extra mode and there are some different bullet patterns. The bosses are also pretty different from normal. For example in Extra the Stage 4 boss acts as a carrier and you mostly fight small ships and drones it sends at you, while in normal you dodge lasers and other weapons it has. The most difference in the whole stage design seemed to be on stage 7
5. Dunno, I got used to it pretty quick but at first died a few times because I was trying to dodge stuff by flying at the edge of the screen. I feel like I'm dodging stuff easier with the rayforce ship, probably cause its faster and you dont need to worry about switching between shot and laser.
Seems like it may be worth picking up after all. Guess the demo isn't really selling the game very well!
The lack of 4:3 ratio is annoying however, as if the game is stretched that can't help with the viewpoint issues I'm having.
Does that twitter post explain why Sony didn't want a 4:3 option included? (I can't read Japanese) Just curious what reasoning they would have for not giving an option to play it in it's native aspect ratio.
Nope, all they said was that they wanted to add it, but ends with "Sony in particular...". As if to say "we wanted to add it, but Sony prevented us from doing so."
Kiken wrote:plus, the stretching has a tendancy to make the auto-centering a bit more "lethal" in places (be really careful when and where you chose to stop moving during certain bullet patterns).
This is pretty annoying at Stage 4's blue lasers, though the big hitbox and R-GRAY 0's speed make it a bit harder too I guess. Just got 10.2mil (stage 5 boss) and 5th place on the extra mode leaderboard you can get huge scores on stage 4, I need to practice the chains there. BTW already at the second boss if you blow up all the parts its patterns become pretty hard to dodge on both modes.
Is anyone playing this Raystorm HD release on an PS3 with an PS3 HRAP 3 or PS2 HRAP setup? And is it silky smooth controller-wise? I noticed that it is up for purchase on the Japanese PSN site now with the asking price of 1,500 yen.
monkeyman wrote:Does that twitter post explain why Sony didn't want a 4:3 option included? (I can't read Japanese) Just curious what reasoning they would have for not giving an option to play it in it's native aspect ratio.
Nope, all they said was that they wanted to add it, but ends with "Sony in particular...". As if to say "we wanted to add it, but Sony prevented us from doing so."
I know Sony USA has a history of not wanting to acknowledge that people might not want the latest and greatest. They haven't allowed Breath of Fire 3's PSP port release in America, and I know a bunch of PS1 2D games took a while before Sony would let them release.
After looking a little closer at the so called "auto centering" of the ship, i noticed that it is the ship just centering itself from banking left to right. If you look closely your ship stays in the same spot after you let off the controller. It give's the illusion that the ship reverts back to the center of the screen after letting off.
Iron Maiden: "It was dead, but alive at the same time."
I think I found another very annoying glitch on the leaderboard.. If you die further in the game (even if your score is worse) than in your best scoring run the score gets switched with the one where you survived longer. My 10.2 million extra score just got swapped to 7mil due to this. Really sucks, means you have to play for score all the time unless its fixed.
I'm not as picky as some here as it is my first experience with the game. I enjoy it about as much as I figured I would.
I do agree that it feels claustrophobic at times though. The view seems more zoomed in than necessary or comfortable at times. Was this much less an issue with the arcade and PS! versions?
No_not_like_Quake wrote:I'm not as picky as some here as it is my first experience with the game. I enjoy it about as much as I figured I would.
I do agree that it feels claustrophobic at times though. The view seems more zoomed in than necessary or comfortable at times. Was this much less an issue with the arcade and PS! versions?
The actual Taito FX-1B powered Raystorm PCB has a stereo output option that will grace a pair of speakers with kick-ass 44.1KHz CD quality BGM. Upon hearing some of the legendary BGM for the first time coming from a RS PCB, it brought tears to my eyes. It was that good. Better than the PSX port of the same name indeed (since the PSX port of RS only deals with lower grade Yellowbook audio format anyways rather than utilizing redbook audio format). A RS PCB is the definitive version to own/play.
bloodflowers wrote:Comparing to playing any game on a PSP screen it's going to come off well - fact remains though, the gameplay is broken compared to the arcade/PSX, and the aspect ratio is plain wrong.
with broken you mean it's different so you can't compare scores between this and the PSX version? i've only played the Saturn port btw
From what I've seen it seems like the timing you need for firing lasers is the same (eg. on stage 1), the enemies first go out of the widescreen area, then you have some extra time to kill them. In the few parts on stage 3, 5 and 7 where its useful to shoot turrets at the top of the screen you can sort of lock on them while you cant see them properly. Looks weird, but seems to work the same. bloodflowers, care to elaborate on the gameplay being broken? I havent played the original version much but it seems mostly visual to me.
Zaarock wrote:I think I found another very annoying glitch on the leaderboard.. If you die further in the game (even if your score is worse) than in your best scoring run the score gets switched with the one where you survived longer. My 10.2 million extra score just got swapped to 7mil due to this. Really sucks, means you have to play for score all the time unless its fixed.
That's not a glitch, that's a conscientious design decision (akin to Arcadia)
Zaarock wrote:I think I found another very annoying glitch on the leaderboard.. If you die further in the game (even if your score is worse) than in your best scoring run the score gets switched with the one where you survived longer. My 10.2 million extra score just got swapped to 7mil due to this. Really sucks, means you have to play for score all the time unless its fixed.
That's not a glitch, that's a conscientious design decision (akin to Arcadia)
It makes no sense because the online leaderboards are all sorted by score.
I wonder if Taito will patch the awful zoomed perspective, at least for 360, now that they were able to get it to market. As it stands I honestly can't warrant purchasing the game, even for the pittance of $15. It's so claustrophobic that I feel as if I'm flying while looking at the ground....please fix now Taito! I've bought Exit 1 & 2 and Bubble Bobble Neo and will gladly add this to my Taito XBLA library if I can actually see what I should be. It's not like the visual data isn't already there...it's just mostly off-screen. But as it stands I can't justify a purchase, even just to show support for a shmup release, when it's this busted-up.
You can choose to play it in either 480p or 720p formats. It's a 368MB d/l off of the JPN region PSN site. A 200KB file size is needed to save on the PS3's HDD. Plus, it supports 2ch. linear audio format (which'll be higher at 48kHz format than the original arcade PCB of the same name which can only output at 44.1kHz at best).
The more I play it the more I think this zoomed in nonsense is causing some trouble.
In Stage 4, I'm having problems with those straight lasers being shot out by the light blue things from the big ships, It seems like if the game was zoomed out a bit, I could see the lasers arc at the top of the screen for a split second, and therefore react. As is, seems like I'm missing some information. Although I perform better as I memorize, it's the only thing in the level that will cause a death when I'm having a good run.
I logged a crapload of hours into PS version a few years ago going for the 1LC.
The zoom is somewhat inconvenient when going for very high scores, but this is more of an issue if you're just freeforming. Scoring well requires a lot of prior knowledge of the stages to make the most of the laser multiplier, so enemy formations are going to be memorized by requirement; just like Rez. Then there's the enemy formations themselves. Almost all of them are symmetrical or have long simple patterns to them. Deducing where an offscreen enemy the rare times it could occur is easy. The zoom only affects me on Boss 1 missiles (and I still took an 'unfair' hit occasionally in PS version) and two enemy formations in the last stage. The rest of the game is fair.
In fact, I appreciate the slight zoom so I can navigate holes in the bullet patterns better. Squeezing through a tight hole between a bullet spread in PS version was extremely difficult. It was almost a requirement to sidestep most entire patterns instead of weaving through holes. I like this change a lot and I believe the game is fairer for it. I think there is a slight player hitbox reduction adjustment as well. I'm not gonna bother thinking I can prove that statement, but I've been able to squeeze through tight holes much more consistently than I've ever been able to in PSX version.
And R-Gear is awesome. It makes me hate the scoring system far less.
If R-HD is gonna be called the 'inferior' version, it's not by much. It's worth the $15.
It does suck they left out the one-of-a-kind set unique difficulties by stage feature. I can't remember if that was just Working Designs acting alone way back then tho.
In fact, I appreciate the slight zoom so I can navigate holes in the bullet patterns better. Squeezing through a tight hole between a bullet spread in PS version was extremely difficult.
I agree. The second boss encounter, for example, does feel incredibly claustrophobic at first, but I'm finding those erratic bullet spreads he tosses out towards the end much easier to dodge consistently. I probably haven't logged more than an hour into it so far, mind you, as I've spent the last couple of days in a drunken stupor. I'm pretty sure I felt the same way about the third boss as well, though.
DJ Incompetent wrote:It does suck they left out the one-of-a-kind set unique difficulties by stage feature. I can't remember if that was just Working Designs acting alone way back then tho.
Nope, that was in the japanese release as well. Regarding the PS1 versions, the JP version defaults to difficulty level 2 for all stages (with 3 lives), while the US version defaults to difficulty 4 (with 5 lives). A bit odd, that.
I've been on the fence about buying R-HD, but I think DJI and Zaarock have convinced me. Even though I already have the game in one of the Taito Memories compilations, HD should work nicely as a companion to that. But I do hope they fix the leaderboards score thing. That's just silly.
No matter how good a game is, somebody will always hate it. No matter how bad a game is, somebody will always love it.
DJ Incompetent wrote:It does suck they left out the one-of-a-kind set unique difficulties by stage feature. I can't remember if that was just Working Designs acting alone way back then tho.
Nope, that was in the japanese release as well. Regarding the PS1 versions, the JP version defaults to difficulty level 2 for all stages (with 3 lives), while the US version defaults to difficulty 4 (with 5 lives). A bit odd, that.
The real reason why the Working Designs version of Raystorm is set to difficulty level 4 was for the $10,000 WD Raystorm contest that they had going on and didn't want players to set it on the easiest difficulty setting and say that it was too easy. I entered it and managed to place in the top 10 ranking. Earned a cool WD produced Raystorm mouse pad as a consolation prize for my 1CC effort.
On the Raystorm PCB, the arcade operator/owner can adjust the difficulty level all the way down to nothing if they wish to do so for all the stages.
you can get huge scores on stage 4, I need to practice the chains there. BTW already at the second boss if you blow up all the parts its patterns become pretty hard to dodge on both modes.
