PSP Sengoku Cannon - Yay, it's actually a shmup

professor ganson · Post by **professor ganson** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 12:08 am

jiji wrote:X-nauts haven't released any new screens online for weeks (months?). I'm expecting the worst. :p We'll see soon enough, though.

Yeah, why are they being so secretive? Even the official site you linked above has little to look at.

pixelcorps · Post by **pixelcorps** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 1:03 am

that looks completely and utterly, totally....

bland.

Pete · Post by **Pete** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 4:40 pm

Sooooooo... Anybody played this yet?

ThirdStrike · Post by **ThirdStrike** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 4:44 pm

Is this game even released yet?

jiji · Post by **jiji** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 4:46 pm

My copy shipped yesterday. I should have it tomorrow, hopefully.

ThirdStrike · Post by **ThirdStrike** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 4:47 pm

jiji wrote:My copy shipped yesterday. I should have it tomorrow, hopefully.

That is truly awesome

Please inform us if the Original Psikyo Spirit lives with X-Nauts!!!!

biocat · Post by **biocat** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 10:49 pm

I have it. I bought it yesterday.

Hmmmm.

I haven't spent too much time with it, honestly. I bought Ouendan for the DS at the same time and I've had much more fun playing that. But that's a totally different type of game so it's not fair to compare the two.

Sengoku Cannon sure has awesome artwork, and it flaunts it at every chance, but the backgrounds are just, "BLAH." The backgrounds just have little to no feeling. It's too bad they chose to go 3D with them. They really are bad as far as I've seen. The cannon weapon is fun to play with. Basically, if you kill something with it, all that enemy's bullets turn to coins giving extra points. You also get an extra bonus in addition for doing this move up close to the enemy.

I can't say I've played the game enough to make any kind of final conclusion, but so far I find it kind of bland. I had more fun playing the PSP Star Soldier than I did with this. Kind of dissapointed. Maybe I'll change my mind with some more play, though. I hope! I do want to like this game.

drohne · Post by **drohne** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 9:29 pm

my copy has shipped from play-asia, but it'll be a week or two before it shows up. which is just as well, really, as i have mushihime, star soldier, and nanostray to play. i'm not expecting much, but i hope it's better than ps2 choaniki. :/

jiji · Post by **jiji** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 10:16 pm

X-nauts have put up a tips page: http://www.x-nauts.com/psp/cannon/main/tips.html

You can use the O button to cycle through different difficulties on the ranking screen.

Extends come at 400,000 and 1,000,000.

Result calculation info:

Cannon bonus: for the seaside magnification system (???), you get a bonus of 100 points per magnification
Time bonus: you get a bonus of 100 points for each tick left on the clock
No miss bonus: 100,000 points

Unockables:

Tengai from Sengoku Blade can be unlocked by clearing the game on normal or hard, with any character, using any amount of continues

Junis from Sengoku Blade can be unlocked by clearning the game on normal or hard, with any character, using no continues,
or: by clearing the game on easy using no continues, after the game has been played for 20 hours or more,
or: by clearing the game on any difficulty using any amount of continues, after the game has been played for 30 hours or more.

Hard mode can be unlocked after clearing normal mode without continuing,
or by clearing the game with any amount of continues, after the game has been played for 10 hours or more. (You can only choose characters with whom you've fulfilled the requirements.)

jiji · Post by **jiji** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 1:56 am

OK, my copy came today, and I credit-fed through a lot of the game with Koyori and the new girl.

The new system is kind of interesting. Your "Cannon Shot" is a single-shot weapon that feels a little like the charge weapons in Psikyo games, except you can use it continuously. If you kill an enemy with it, you get a small multiplier bonus and any shots the enemy had in the air get converted to bonuses that look like the coins in Blade.

Unfortunately, for the most part, the game SUCKS.

You character/ship moves too quickly, and it's hard to control him/her with the PSP's d-pad. This is really really bad for large bullet swarms. The PSP's d-pad is really bad for this kind of game. My thumb aches like a bitch after about 10-15 minutes of playing the game. Cannon supports the analog nub, but it does't allow any proportional movement - it's still all-or-nothing, and I think it's still only 8-way. Both analog control and D-pad control feel just a bit laggy, too.

The bullet storms can get pretty intense, and this just makes the dodging problem worse. If the analog control were properly implemented, I think the game would be a good deal more playable.

The problem of being able to move your character properly is compounded by the fact that the game runs at 30 frames per second. This makes it hard to see bullets and enemies, and harder to dodge bullets. That's in addition to the fact that it makes everything look really chintzy.

What else is chintzy? The backgrounds. They're some of the worst I've ever seen. There's a good reason Psikyo didn't release many screenshots of the game. 2-3 of the levels have backgrounds consisting mostly of flat planes and plain backgrounds with zero detail. The level the Edo-like city background isn't terrible, but the rest are, honestly. Sprites aren't as well-animated as in Blade, though a lot of them look ripped from Blade. Load times are pretty long, but I wouldn't expect much else from a PSP game at this point.

This is a really cheaply-done, no-effort, sad excuse for a shooter. Don't let the logo fool you, kids - Psikyo is dead, and X-nauts aren't even trying.

The art is nice - Tsukasa Jun will always rock - and it's definitely the best part of the game. If Tsukasa releases an artbook or doujinshi full of art done for Cannon, I'd recommend buying that instead of this.

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 2:01 am

Impressions appreciated guys!

Oh well, at least there's leeching in it, so it's not a total loss!

Perhaps the backgrounds are also why there are no videos of this shmup, and I'd really like to see some footage of it.

Thunder Force · Post by **Thunder Force** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 5:14 am

jiji wrote:The problem of being able to move your character properly is compounded by the fact that the game runs at 30 frames per second.

Thanks for posting your useful detailed first impressions. I've been holding out in the past week to read this kind of information, to decide between importing either PSP Star Soldier or Sengoku Cannon. Since I don't think I can lay down cash for both of these right now, I'm now definitely leaning towards Star Soldier.

Hitting diagonals on the PSP D-pad is indeed far more difficult than it looks, certainly a lot more difficult that it was on the PS2 Dual Shock 2.

At first I didn't notice this since the problem is totally unnoticable when playing many popular PSP games like Ridge Racers, Lumines and Namco Museum with the D-pad, of course -- since those games don't use diagonal D-pad movement at all in their default control schemes. And in Wipeout Pure, which does use diagonals, you can use the analog nub to address any shortcomings of the D-pad (unlike in a shmup where the analog nub doesn't work well at all).

When I'm playing a myriad of emulated shmups on the PSP lately, the diagonal D-pad movement problem clearly shows up. It's ok for old school games with not many bullets, but precise navigation through large clouds of bullets will always be an exercise in frustration. One ray of hope perhaps, is that my PSP D-pad seems to possibly be loosening up after some further use, perhaps improving it, time will tell.

It's too bad Nintendo patented the functional " + " controller pad shape preventing us from using that on non-Nintendo hardware, or we probably wouldn't be in this mess.

Back on the Sengoku Cannon vs. Star Soldier subject... Has anyone confirmed whether Star Soldier PSP runs at a steady 60 frames per second, or is 30 fps like Sengoku Cannon?

Balzac · Post by **Balzac** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 8:29 am

Star Soldier runs at 60 frames a second, but its not really that great a game either (I gave it a 5/10 in a recent emag review). Most bullet swarms can be cancelled out by using the ship's blaster function so theres practically no bullet dodging unless you play on God difficultly. This is further compounded by LOTS of suiciding enemies.

Why can't a Cave shooter get ported

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 4:26 pm

Balzac wrote:Star Soldier runs at 60 frames a second, but its not really that great a game either (I gave it a 5/10 in a recent emag review). Most bullet swarms can be cancelled out by using the ship's blaster function so theres practically no bullet dodging unless you play on God difficultly. This is further compounded by LOTS of suiciding enemies.

Why can't a Cave shooter get ported

Yeah, but there's 3 selectable ships, as opposed to only one in XBOX/PS2/Game Cube Star Soldier.

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 4:31 pm

Thunder Force wrote:
jiji wrote:The problem of being able to move your character properly is compounded by the fact that the game runs at 30 frames per second.
Thanks for posting your useful detailed first impressions. I've been holding out in the past week to read this kind of information, to decide between importing either PSP Star Soldier or Sengoku Cannon. Since I don't think I can lay down cash for both of these right now, I'm now definitely leaning towards Star Soldier.

Hitting diagonals on the PSP D-pad is indeed far more difficult than it looks, certainly a lot more difficult that it was on the PS2 Dual Shock 2.

At first I didn't notice this since the problem is totally unnoticable when playing many popular PSP games like Ridge Racers, Lumines and Namco Museum with the D-pad, of course -- since those games don't use diagonal D-pad movement at all in their default control schemes. And in Wipeout Pure, which does use diagonals, you can use the analog nub to address any shortcomings of the D-pad (unlike in a shmup where the analog nub doesn't work well at all).

When I'm playing a myriad of emulated shmups on the PSP lately, the diagonal D-pad movement problem clearly shows up. It's ok for old school games with not many bullets, but precise navigation through large clouds of bullets will always be an exercise in frustration. One ray of hope perhaps, is that my PSP D-pad seems to possibly be loosening up after some further use, perhaps improving it, time will tell.

It's too bad Nintendo patented the functional " + " controller pad shape preventing us from using that on non-Nintendo hardware, or we probably wouldn't be in this mess.

Back on the Sengoku Cannon vs. Star Soldier subject... Has anyone confirmed whether Star Soldier PSP runs at a steady 60 frames per second, or is 30 fps like Sengoku Cannon?

It is indeed a shame that Nintendo patented that control pad, but that's no excuse for Sony being unable to come up with a D-Pad on any of their controllers that's actually SOLID and CONNECTED.

Sega did it with the Saturn Controller, and the DC Controller, and even the newer XBOX controllers have a nice big solid D-Pad. Sony seriously needs get their butts in gear on this, so that people who want to play shmups or 2D fighters on the PS2 aren't reduced to having to shell out even more money, in addition to the console, for a third-party controller.

Kron · Post by **Kron** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 5:04 pm

How are the bosses and bullet patterns? Its a shame as it sounds like they haven't really made an effort.

Still looking forward to it arriving, There hasn't been anything truly interesting on the PSP for a while now.

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 5:57 pm

TF, please let us know if you locate any video footage of this shmup; thanks!

Dylan1CC · Post by **Dylan1CC** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 7:04 pm

jiji wrote:This is a really cheaply-done, no-effort, sad excuse for a shooter. Don't let the logo fool you, kids - Psikyo is dead, and X-nauts aren't even trying.

Oh well, glad the most time I spent with the series is a brief try of a Sengoku Blade cab a few motnhs ago. That way it's less of a disappointment.

Looks like we wait for widescreen Gradius.

EDIT: With that said on a possible Gradius PSP game, I don't see how one's thumb could ache from playing a shmup on the PSP. Call me crazy but i have never had a problem with it, feels comfy. jiji, would you say it's also the way the bullet clouds are executed (poorly i am guessing) in the game that compounds ease of use with the PSP's D pad?

But yeah, any hectic game your thumb is gonna ache after a lot of hectic action, my thumb definitely gets tired if I play Lumines challenge mode for an hour straight. But I'd still rather hold my PSP the way it is than get Star Soldier and hold it with the awkward TATE.

The 30 fps and lame backgrounds are a big letdown though.

Dylan1CC · Post by **Dylan1CC** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 8:06 pm

BTW, jiji did you catch who the programmers were? Any familiar names?

jiji · Post by **jiji** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 9:47 pm

The bosses, aside from the first boss that's been shown in screenshots, are human characters like the midbosses in Sengoku Blade. There aren't any awesome huge multi-segmented bosses here. The patterns seem like standard Psikyo, but bullets are generally pink instead of red or orange. There are new, fat bullets that are a little bigger than the player.

The game's actually not bad to play for the first couple of levels or so. Tapping up or down to dodge slower bullets is perfectly manageable, because it gives you time to account for the little bit of lag in the controls and how long it'll take your thumb to get to the other d-button. But as the game demands more out of my playing, the controls become harder to manage and the fun goes out the window. There are quite a few bullet fields that involve sheer luck to give through, given the control lag and the too-fast player movement.

(My thumb aches when I have it placed flat on the D-pad so I can easily move in all directions at once. The size of the D-pad and the amount of work required to manipulate it constantly cause the ache.)

The section of the last level leading up to and during the final boss has no background whatsoever - it's just solid black. Given the slowdowns that happen during the last level when the background is rotated a bit, they probably took out the backdrop there just so the game didn't slow to a crawl during the pretty-intense final boss battle.

I want to like bits and pieces of this game. There are parts that are actually fun (like clearing out enemy bullets with the Cannon - feels "inspired" by kakusei mode in Espgaluda), and that could have been used to make a great game. The technical problems and the general lack of effort just drag the whole thing down, though.

I didn't recognize any of the names in the credits off the top of my head, and they went by too fast for me to type them out. T_T

Dylan1CC · Post by **Dylan1CC** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 9:59 pm

Thanks for the additional and very detailed info, jiji!

CecilMcW00t · Post by **CecilMcW00t** » Sun Jul 31, 2005 2:32 am

Wow... I'm glad I didn't impulse buy this... I'll just stick the Sengoku pack for PS2... =/

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Sun Jul 31, 2005 5:57 pm

Anybody wanna capture some video of Sengoku Cannon?

I've searched high and wide on the net, and can't locate any footage of this shmup.

gameoverDude · Post by **gameoverDude** » Sun Jul 31, 2005 7:06 pm

With Mushihimesama and Taito Memories Joukan hitting in rapid succession, I needed to put SC and SS on hold for about a couple of weeks.

Nice review, jiji. Too bad it seems Sengoku Ace Episode III isn't up to the standards of Blade. I'd be missing those "nesting-egg" boss battles myself.

Star Soldier looks like the one I'd get first. I think X-Nauts may just be cashing in on Psikyo's name.

Sony's divided D-Pad is an annoyance (Damn you for your patent, Nintendo). Until arcade sticks started showing up for PS1, I used to tape quarters over the D-Pad. It's a shame there isn't some kind of Sega Master System style "mini-stick" on the PSP- the SMS D-Pad was pretty nice. Just take the plug out of the center and screw in the mini-stick, and all is good.

I think a PSP Player is desperately needed.

iatneH · Post by **iatneH** » Sun Jul 31, 2005 8:44 pm

Hmm, I ought to try that quarter-taping trick, it might improve my Darkstalkers game.

I think I'll be OK as far as input lag goes... I don't think I'm a good enough player to know that any death isn't the result of my own suckage but rather from input lag :p

biocat · Post by **biocat** » Mon Aug 01, 2005 1:57 am

The control in Sengoku Cannon is pretty horrendous. It's just way too imprecise. The backgrounds are also so bad. It's sad actually because they are so lackluster and bland but at times can actually cause really bad slowdown.

Star Soldier is definitely the better of the two... by far.

iatneH · Post by **iatneH** » Mon Aug 01, 2005 2:04 am

Star Soldier better than Sengoku Cannon?

That was quite an unexpected result.

Alas, I will not know for at least another two days, as it's a long weekend on Monday, the Canadian Postal Service comes to a grinding halt on holidays, and I'm working long overtime on Tuesday

So much for 2-3 days express delivery, my stuff shipped on Wednesday.

Soldato J · Post by **Soldato J** » Mon Aug 01, 2005 6:03 pm

This news of Sengoku Cannon's suckiness is very distressing to me. I was already planning to go pick up a PSP this week and order the game.

I want to go cry now...

Dylan1CC · Post by **Dylan1CC** » Mon Aug 01, 2005 7:24 pm

Soldato J wrote:This news of Sengoku Cannon's suckiness is very distressing to me. I was already planning to go pick up a PSP this week and order the game.

I want to go cry now...

As a very satisfied PSP owner I say get one anyways and get Lumines to go along with it. Besides, it's only a matter of time before we start getting gravy like Gradius and Klonoa PSP (i hope).

I also am surprised that Star Soldier would be the pick over SC. I'll eventually get Star Soldier, but holding the PSP that way sure looks awful wonky.

Aw, who am I kiddin', I'll get used to it and it is very cool that this tried and true PC Engine series is still alive today. BTW, anyone know the programmers for Star Soldier, any former Inter State Kaneko guys on board?

But anyways, with Mushihime I don't need to buy any new shmups for quite a few months.

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Mon Aug 01, 2005 11:44 pm

I wonder if Hudson has, or will, publish a soundtrack for PSP Star Soldier-BEST Hudson shmup music since Lords of Thunder, IMO.

I dunno about elsewhere in the country, but here in the Denver area, the PSP has caught on like wildfire. Sales are through the roof, and I now know 2 people who own a PSP INSTEAD of owning an TV-based console!