(Steam/XBLA) Zeit²

[Xonatron]

(P.S. Kollision, Score Rush isn't an arena shmup, it's a vertical! Just checked out your impressive collection and glad our game is on it!)

[Kollision]

(P.S. Kollision, Score Rush isn't an arena shmup, it's a vertical! Just checked out your impressive collection and glad our game is on it!)

Tks for the heads-up, I just had that impression when I tested the game. Will rectify soon!

[TrevHead (TVR)]

Regular shmuppers are people too, you all know that, right?
We have feelings, we enjoy some casual stuff from time to time.

I agree, not every shooter has to be complex and hard, needing weeks to master it. Even though every euroshmup (which isnt that many) ive play has been a bag of shite. I do believe there is such a thing as a good euroshmup (thats got half decent stage design thats fun and nothing buggy or broken like interia or laggy contrls) Ive just yet to play such a beast.

What I do think is a shame though (and is probably why euroshmups get such a bad press on this forum) is that nearlly all western made or whats more easily available (atleast where steam is concerned) are euroshmups and usually bad ones at that

[Udderdude]

I do believe there is such a thing as a good euroshmup (thats got half decent stage design thats fun and nothing buggy or broken like interia or laggy contrls) Ive just yet to play such a beast.

Psst .. Soldner X2 :P

[Xonatron]

(P.S. Kollision, Score Rush isn't an arena shmup, it's a vertical! Just checked out your impressive collection and glad our game is on it!)

Tks for the heads-up, I just had that impression when I tested the game. Will rectify soon!

No sweat. It was hard to tell the bg scrolled. That's why we were called out for being a shoddy geo-wars clone in some reviews (http://xona.com/2010/12/31.html).

[Xonatron]

I do believe there is such a thing as a good euroshmup (thats got half decent stage design thats fun and nothing buggy or broken like interia or laggy contrls) Ive just yet to play such a beast.

Psst .. Soldner X2

How was #2? I haven't played it.

[kid aphex]

intellectualism as a defense for a shmup ... a weird time, 2011 is.

[Kaiser]

I do believe there is such a thing as a good euroshmup (thats got half decent stage design thats fun and nothing buggy or broken like interia or laggy contrls) Ive just yet to play such a beast.

Psst .. Soldner X2

How was #2? I haven't played it.

Well considering I did play it a long while (10 hours+) and 1cc'd it (including 3 DLC stages in one full sitting). It's far superior to the first one, AT LEAST you can kill all enemies much more easily now so you're not underpowered. The music is grand, you should check this tune out as an example. Now onto gameplay, first off.

Remember when you had to collect keys in each run, in the first game to access World 5 EVERY TIME you played it? They fixed it, your keys are saved now. So by any means if you unlock stage 5, 6 or 7, they're unlocked permamently (note: to access each new stage, you gotta collect 4 keys in one of stages).

As I said, you're never underpowered because you can kill all enemies on the screen if you want. Since you're not mighty powerful either, how do the boss fights last? Boss fights are way way more interesting/diverse than in first one, they have multiple forms with different arrays of attack each and to add, the game doesn't RELY only on bullets like modern bullet hells. Bosses can ram into you, make ice cavern start falling on you or do even more ridicoulous stuff. They usually take from 2 to 5 minutes to beat, depending on what boss we're fighting (later ones take LONGER but they're not boring by any means, they're fun to fight. Stage 7 boss is like one big obstacle course.)

Biggest question being, how is the difficulty? If you're expecting DDP hard difficulty or something, this is absolutely not for you. This game is catered towards casuals (There are far MORE of them than us all in here, like Udderdude said in 2008 in XOP thread). However there are extra difficulties which you unlock over time like Hard, Extra Hard and Massive Attack. Not only they significantly increase the bullet attack but also DECREASE the number of hits you can take before you bite the dust so things become a lot more hectic and risky.

I should mention there is a lifebar, yes there is but the game is balanced enough to even kick your ass with it . Another feature that may be a push-off for "DEM ELITISTS" is regenerative function of the lifebar. YES it regenerates however unlike modern FPS shit games, it doesn't start regenerating right away, you gotta wait like 60 to 120 seconds for it to regenerate. Plus it doesn't regenerate entirely, only to the half of your lifebar. On Massive Attack mode, that's pretty much only 2 hits (1 if you're regenerating).

So simply, this game will never be for DDP elitists or any Cave lovers (who apparently shit on the game not just once for being euro alone). However if you're searching for a best euroshmup that implements the most hated stuff around here damn well. This is definitely the one.

There is a lot of stuff I could mention but I think that's it for my rant. (If you want to get it, GET IT in a bundle with the last chapter DLC, you won't regret it)

[Kollision]

Remember when you had to collect keys in each run, in the first game to access World 5 EVERY TIME you played it?

Nice rundown on X2, emperor, but I gotta correct you a bit on X1.

In the first game the keys you collect ARE saved for posterity, meaning you don't need to look out for the ones you already found. Once you access the 5th stage you'll always get to it regardless of how many keys you get in your run.

X2 did things a bit different, in that if you're still searching for missing keys you can start directly in the stage you need instead of going through the whole campain in order to find them.

[postmanmanman]

I tried the demo the other day. I'm definitely more "casual" than "hardcore," but I still found it incredibly boring. I mean, even if there are more enemies in the later stages, I can't imagine it ever amounting to much more than a poor hori shmup. The scoring was uninteresting and the time control gimmick was just that: a gimmick. Rewinding about four seconds to hit those enemies you missed or to hit invisible enemies just feels... pointless.

Still, I have had this idea of a time-control based shmup swimming around in my head for quite some time. How cool (and potentially unwieldy...) would it be if you could rewind entire stages of a shmup? Your past "self" would go through the same path, so you could play "co-op" asynchronously with yourself. The hardest part would be good level design, I think... trying to make stages varied enough to not be boring to play twice.

[Jeneki]

I really like the idea of an accuracy-based shooter. One where using careful aim to fully destroy every last target is important. Also, using time control to catch enemies at opposite ends of the screen that you'd otherwise miss is a cool use of time control, and much better than a simple "oops" rewind button.

However the input lag really brings down my desire to fully explore the deeper levels. When I push a direction, I expect to move NOW. If the game is patched with more responsive controls I'll definitely give it another shot.

[Xonatron]

The inertia keeps coming up. Does the ship have inertia, or just the shield around it?

[Jeneki]

If I suspect a shmup has laggy controls (usually I can tell if it feels off), I give it the "wiggle test". Basically, I quickly tap left-right-left-right-etc, like I'm performing XII Stag side attacks or Psyvariar spins. If the ship moves in sync with my controls, I'm happy. If I'm pushing left but my ship is still moving right, chances are I'm not going to play that game much.

The ship does indeed lag in Zeit^2 by a noticeable amount. The extra "shield inertia" is nothing new to shmups, so I'm not taking that into consideration. Lots of shmups have options or helpers that follow you after a brief pause in the exact same way as the shield in Zeit^2.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

I do believe there is such a thing as a good euroshmup (thats got half decent stage design thats fun and nothing buggy or broken like interia or laggy contrls) Ive just yet to play such a beast.

Psst .. Soldner X2

Shame its a ps3 exclusive meaning itll be a very long time before it get chance to play it. I hear the prequel isnt as good due to having a underpowered weapon. How about if I play it in easy mode? Is it worth checking out?

BTW Destructiod has made a favorable review of Zeit2 http://www.destructoid.com/review-zeit-2-191750.phtml

(and while im here) anyone whose a lover of Crono Trigger might want to check out these 2 fully fleadged SNES fan games http://www.destructoid.com/grab-these-c ... 1983.phtml

[Despatche]

Did you just plug offtopic, seriously-copyright-infringing material in the Zeit² thread?

edit: And you plugged "doujin shmups" in that particular article. Impressive.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

Impressive.

the only thing I find "impressive" is your never ending sarcasm

[TVG]

I gave the XBLA version (no DRM problems here) another go, just to see if there's really something behind it. This time I played twice and got to second boss before the demo time over, which I guess is a better glimpse than just ST 1.

The good: the inertia is less than I tought indeed because the ship "feels" more laggy than it is because of the bubble. Thre's still definitely quite a bit of input lag we'd all complain about if it was present in, say, a gradius port and we'd consider it unplayable.

The bad: Level two is just as bland as the first, maybe by level five it starts to get interesting or something,
who knows.
Stage 2 boss framerate! What the shit, there's barely anything on the screen and the game already crawls, huge ass frameskip almost during the whole battle, I can't imagine the latter stages.
It's a bad game. Nice idea in theory but poorly done.

I am sure the game CAN find it's public, maybe minus the awful framerate issue, and I'm sure some people will like it.
It's a lost cause to try to cater it to actual shmup players, though, because everything we've grown up to built an instinct to have some of the game design decisions of Zeit². This is not an innate flaw of the game, it's just that shmups.com is the wrong target.

See things like Platypus:
Now, of course considering my aquired tastes, the first time I played it I wondered what the fuck was the point to the existence of this game. Nobody could like this, I tought, it's complete and utter shit. Well, the next thing you know I read it has quite the fans and all. Perspective I guess. I'm fine with that. We are a niche, I guess the more "casual" flash-type shooters are another niche.

I feel like making a writeup on what a western dev should do to at least cater to some extent to shmuppers, be it guys that can 1CC both loops of ketsui or people who swear by raiden and R-type. I'm too lazy right now, maybe I'll do it later when I think about it troughly.

Since we're offtopic enough, I just tried "score attack" on the XBLA indie games. Demo looks nice, mixes classic geometry wars with intricate bullet pattern avoiding. Can't seem to find any major flaw with it other than the bullets are ugly and clash with the rest. Is it worth buying, demo ends too quick to judge.
Wow I'm such a cheap ass, the thing is like one or two euros haha, guess I'll just buy it.

[Jason]

Since we're offtopic enough, I just tried "score attack" on the XBLA indie games. Demo looks nice, mixes classic geometry wars with intricate bullet pattern avoiding. Can't seem to find any major flaw with it other than the bullets are ugly and clash with the rest. Is it worth buying, demo ends too quick to judge.
Wow I'm such a cheap ass, the thing is like one or two euros haha, guess I'll just buy it.

This is totally off topic, but I thought I'd mention the only game called "score attack" in XBLIG (Xbox LIVE Indie Games) (Note: XBLA is Xbox LIVE Arcade, a different section) is a sub-mode in Crossfire 2. I do believe you meant to say Score Rush, since everyone seems to think it's based on Geometry Wars due to neon rainbow colors, but it's, in fact, a wide-screen overhead vertical scrolling bullet hell shmup with multi-directional fire, based on the Duality ZF engine. I quite like the bullets; their purpose is for visibility: "Empower the Player" is our motto at Xona Games. Sorry the demo felt short; but it can be replayed as much times as you desire for free. No limit. And yes, it's $1 (80 Microsoft points). I'll end here since this is Zeit^2's thread, not mine.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

lol I thought SR was a $10 game and it was D X3 that was the one or two dollar game. And here I was just saying on the other thread that I thought £10 - £15 was a decent amount for a steam port and I called someone a cheapskate for saying $10 for them both.

Still after checking up abit more on SR yesterday. I still would have no problems paying top dollar for it as the idea of a twinstick, widescreen bullet hell really compelling

EDIT

I'll end here since this is Zeit^2's thread, not mine.

Quite right, Ill shut up now

[TVG]

Bought the full version and like it.

Offtopic over.

[Rozyrg]

I have to agree with the general consensus here. One word says it all about the demo. It's just... boring.

I'd also like to note it isn't just the bullet hell junkies with this opinion. I don't need a screen full of enemy bullets for a good time with a shooter; but I also don't think a fun first level is too much to ask for in one either. If this were an actual arcade game, there's no chance it'd ever get quarter number two from me.

For me, it's not just the inertia or the random patterns.. there's just no 'flash.' I'm not saying there should necessarily be constant rainbow-colored fireworks and a cacophony of glorious Atari/golden age arcade sfx like a JM game or anything; but it could use a *tad* more excitement starting off.

(I did think the music was fairly cool, though.)

[Xonatron]

I absolutely loved the polish of Zeit2, something I hope to have done as well in Duality ZF if it hits XBLA. Thinking about it, this is a first game by an indie team and they made it to XBLA, something we have been doing forever (and it's way more difficult than you can possibly first imagine). So kudos on that! I wish Ubisoft did more marketing, because a game like Zeit2, with its intracacies, needs marketing and explanation. And I heard none. They could have really pushed it, and it deserved to be push more than it was. That's the general feeling I have. I would be interested in knowing exactly what marketing they did.

[Kollision]

I saw my brother playing the game today, and I noticed no framerate issues on bosses anymore.
It seems to have been corrected.

[JBC]

Just played the demo and loved it. Iunno what's wrong with you guys. Try to be more open minded. ^_^

[Austin]

This is discounted on XBLA for about $5. I picked it up the other day and feel it's all right. Not worth the $10 it normally is, but for $5, not bad. The rewind feature is neat and is used mainly to defeat certain kinds of enemies, to double the firepower temporarily and to score more points. It is actually implemented pretty well. Another bonus is that it uses the dpad so I can use my Hori with it.

[Thunder Force]

XBLA version has a bug in that it listens to the Xbox default control scheme for FPS and flight games, so that it'll invert Y if you have that setting set. A patch will surely fix this

Looks like a patch did come out to fix this bug in the Xbox version. Was quite a nasty bug, when I first purchased the game some time ago it was literally unplayable due to this (I didn't know about the system settings workaround), and I suspected it must be bugged. But I was finally able to play it fine this weekend, as I happened to fire it up again on a whim, and the game patched itself.

[TodayIsForgotten]

this game is mediocre. Sorry for those who think its good.

[Observer]

Well, bumping this for anyone considering the Steam version of the game.

As you know, the people behind this were picked by Ubisoft, who decided to slam TAGES Solidshield to this game, definitely condemning it to a quick and painful death. Even if it's mediocre, the game was good fun for a while but, seriously, TAGES? Jeez.

As of January 2012, and after dozens of users reported problems on Windows 7 64-bit and others with this game, the developers finally got rid of freaking TAGES. It's been patched out.

So, yep, you can get it safely now if you want... although I would wait for a sale if you want it.

[DrInfy]

The game has an interesting idea, but it's not very impressive otherwise. It's pretty easy to complete (took me around an hour and ~3 deaths [continues] on my first try), has 2 different songs and the mid boss from stage 1 appears as mid boss in every stage. The Backgrounds just loop the same thing the whole game over. Any harder part just basically requires memorization of the waves. There are no difficulty levels to adjust in the main game, but a ton of extra modes, which I couldn't personally find very interesting, but it certainly gives longetivity.

I'm not impressed by the game, but it's certainly much better than Razor2, out of which I'm still seeing nightmares.

[Pharos]

Just a head up, this game is 75% off on Xbox live this week.