OutZone

[Lance Boyle]

OutZone is a pretty awesome vertical run-n'-gun by Toaplan, and the best in the genre I've played so far.

I've gotten as far as the Stage 2 boss, and up to that point bullet density is surprisingly thick and your hitbox is wide. Twitch reflexes are quite necessary, and failing to shoot quickly and accurately may kill you before the bullets do.

You have two weapons, which you can change at frequently-placed item boxes. The first of which is a rapid-firing laser that aims the direction you're facing, and as you're trying to dodge and shoot at the same time it's RATHER DIFFICULT to hit anything. This is why I generally prefer the second weapon, which is a forward-firing spread shot. As it's forward firing, you can concentrate more on the bullets -- However, you are very vulnerable to enemies approaching from the side or (rarely) behind.

When you get Game Over, it tells you what percentage of the game you've completed. This is a neat feature. So far I've gotten to 18% on one credit, so this game's probably going to last me quite a while.

If you're too lazy to emulate it in MAME or just want a sneak preview, have a pro spoil it for you.

Arcade Longplay [151] OutZone

[jonny5]

seriously?

[Lance Boyle]

seriously?

Did I do something wrong?

EDIT: oh god I'm trying too hard again fuck fuck fuck

[caldwert]

Hahaha Jonny5, owned it since 2001. Paid beans for it to boot. Neat game, but most of us here already are well aware of it.

[louisg]

Nothing wrong with a new OutZone thread .. that game rocks! Have you guys tried the sequel, Fix Eight?

[caldwert]

Yeah, I personally like Fixeight more, but I'm in the minority I know. Both are awesome games though.

[Arcatech]

Outzone is indeed a really great game. I used to like fixeight more until I started playing this one. I dig the graphic style and music in Outzone a lot better.


Once you start memorizing the levels you can just cruise through it very quickly and the speed up helps too. fav weapon is the flamethrower by far

Also, there seems to be a more difficult version and a less difficult version in mame. Try out the different romsets to find out.

[Lance Boyle]

The bootleg of FixEight works but not the main ROM. Lol, is it uncracked protection?

Are there any significant differences between the main version and FixEight? I tried and it looks... weird!

[ST Dragon]

So did this classic ever get a console release? Apart from online virtual consoles, etc... which don't count for me.

[Ruldra]

The OutZone hiscore thread was one of my favorites since everyone had superb scores. But lgb took them down for some reason and never put them back up

[Skykid]

Thanks for the heads up!

Outzone = awesome.

[Despatche]

The bootleg of FixEight works but not the main ROM. Lol, is it uncracked protection?

Are there any significant differences between the main version and FixEight? I tried and it looks... weird!

Apparently, various toaplan2 games (that is, the toaplan2 games actually made by Toaplan) possess uncracked protection in some form or another; games like Fire Shark, Vimana, and Grind Stormer have no sound, Batsugun has odd sound and weird graphical glitches, etc. The only process seems to be "decapping" these PCBs which is expensive and carries risk of damaging/destroying the PCB itself (edit: no, the process generally destroys the PCB regardless).

The bootleg for Fixeight is strange. I don't know if it was created the way it was or if something is wrong with its own emulation, but the colors are wrong and the sound is ruined (sounds like the pitch dropped to the low end of the spectrum). This is what the music is SUPPOSED to sound like.

Also... wouldn't this go in Shmups Chat?

[CIT]

The OutZone hiscore thread was one of my favorites since everyone had superb scores. But lgb took them down for some reason and never put them back up

You should just open a new thread, the current one is dead.

[Lance Boyle]

Also... wouldn't this go in Shmups Chat?

This is a run n' gun, not a shmup.

And yeah it disturbed me how the bootleg had so much RAINBOW. Game seemed cool, though. Oh well.

[Skykid]

Also... wouldn't this go in Shmups Chat?

This is a run n' gun, not a shmup.

Nnngh, very debatable. It's a shmup in my book.

[antron]

Also... wouldn't this go in Shmups Chat?

This is a run n' gun, not a shmup.

Nnngh, very debatable. It's a shmup in my book.

True. In shmups, whenever enemies move at the same speed as you and remain on screen, the only difference between that and OutZone is a scrolling background. This is the case in every shmup boss fight.

[PepsimanVsJoe]

What I always thought was badass was when you put in another credit and a second one of those dudes appeared in the title screen.

Gotta say though..that metal armor thingie looks like it chafes like mad.

[incognoscente]

Moved to Shmups Chat.


(I have allowed votes for this in the past few Top 25 lists. Sorry it took me a while to move the thread.)

[jepjepjep]

Having never played Outzone before, how would you guys compare it to Shock Troopers on the Neo? I really like Shock Troopers, btw.

[Despatche]

I find Shock Troopers to be a somewhat different kind of game. OutZone still feels a bit like a Toaplan game, just with push-scrolling. Shock Troopers, however, feels like some "neo Ikari Warriors" (NEO ON GEO). I don't know, something I felt about it.

[jonny5]

Having never played Outzone before, how would you guys compare it to Shock Troopers on the Neo? I really like Shock Troopers, btw.

They play very differently. Outzone is playable in MAME, so just give it a go and see for yourself.

I like the aesthetic and style of the game, but I'm horrible at it.

I also really like Shock Troopers!

[renardqueenston]

Having never played Outzone before, how would you guys compare it to Shock Troopers on the Neo? I really like Shock Troopers, btw.

i'd say it's similar as far as the very base is concerned. it's a lot more... shmuppy. kinda like a shmup-ified Mercs. the inability to stay locked in one direction while you shoot makes the game really tough at points, and was kind of what put me off of OutZone for a long time.

Yeah, I personally like Fixeight more, but I'm in the minority I know. Both are awesome games though.

same here, Fixeight kicks a lot of ass! would love to play that one legit some day.

[Lance Boyle]

I highly recommend not playing with a keyboard on this one. Even the 360 analog stick does a far superior job, as to cover the most area you'll need to twitch rapidly in all directions; speed is more important than precision.

[Ruldra]

Nothing wrong in using a keyboard. I've beaten the game with it and never had any problems.

[Lance Boyle]

I guess I suck then.

[toaplan_shmupfan]

Outzone is a great game, here are my contributions to the ongoing discusson.

I also disagree that Outzone should be panned as a Run 'N' Gun rather than a Shmup. All of the boss patterns except for the final boss are very shmup-like boss patterns when compared to another run 'n' gun such as Heavy Barrel. In fact, starting with the first boss those are very Toaplan shooter resembling bosses and shot patterns. Later on some of the tank like enemies just as part of the stage have obvious Twin Cobra style attack patterns. Even the sawblade style attack of one of the bosses starts out with shooting missiles that break up into other shots.

Speedup helps but the one area with the narrow walkways and moving platforms, I always end up just using a bomb when a bullet gets close rather than trying to dodge it while negotiating that section. There are so many bombs available in that stage anyway, it's just a loss of a 5000 points bonus after collecting 10 bombs vs. losing a turn. That area is also one of the many places that falling off is an additional hazard, since the speedup will also probably have been collected before that area.

Super Ball is the ultimate weapon in the game, making it almost too easy once obtained. Hold down the button and the ball spins around the player, taking out enemies (but not bullets). Press and release, the ball spins around once and the fires up. Super Burner isn't as good due to needing to be at close range and it changes firing angle with player movement.

Some of the bosses have some nasty tricks. One cuts away two parts of the entire boss fighting zone. Another has a spinning attack that must be entered and exited to damage the boss. Oddly enough, the final boss is the easist boss of the game.

The energy bar makes this a forced scroll game. Don't move and the energy keeps draining. The stage isn't over until the end of stage boss is destroyed, of course--can't run out of energy during the boss battle either. The energy bar is not a lifebar, however, as a single bullet (without the one hit shield) means loss of turn.

One player mode has checkpoints. Only the two player mode has instant respawn.

[emphatic]

I'm terrified of that damn dinosaur. If you die there, you're screwed.

Protip: Find the hidden Toaplan mascot in the second rock formations (you'll need to pick up one C to get the three way shot) on stage one and bring it to the boss area without killing it for a cool 50K bonus. To find it, aim your most-left shot into the "cave" holes in the rock formations until you see a little speech bubble saying "pi-pi-pi" or something. Keep firing until the purple guy pops out, but watch your energy level.

[Arcatech]

Its pretty sweet when ships from Flying Shark make a formation and block enemy bullets.

Does anyone know what triggers this or is it kind of random?

[toaplan_shmupfan]

I'd also like to know what causes the Truxton ship to appear as well.

As for trying it out in MAME, I tried it, then deleted it. Though the music and graphics were exactly like the arcade the shots seemed too fast compared to US arcade machines and there was also regular slowdown every time four or more enemies were on screen while shots were being fired. Then when the enemies decreased there was a sudden increase in speed. It made for very annoying gameplay.

If there was some setting that I needed to change somewhere, it wasn't obvious, so I was using the default MAME behavior.

The system being used had an AMD Phenom X4 with 8 GB of RAM and ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphics--not a weak system by any extent, even when running Windows Vista.

[Zeether]

I thought the Zero Wing ship appeared sometimes and left a string of 5000 point icons.

Also you can have Flying Shark planes back you up but I don't know how they activate either. I think it involves the Pipiru trick.