Pink Sweets & Muchi Muchi Pork bundle - Xbox 360!!!!!

[ptoing]

I do not see what's so strange about Dangun as the next XBLA port.

It is the ONLY game they can port which was not ported to anything else (except for ESPRa.De and Progear, which are tied up and perhaps Ibara Kuro, but I think a Ibara/Ibara Kuro Disc release is likely if MMP/PS does halfway OK)

[Skykid]

That just states they got emails. Nothing mentioned there about the survey.

Who gives a shit, why do you want cold hard evidence anyway? A vote was cast a decision was made, Guwange came out, been out.

Some people seem to be under the misapprehension that Guwange was voted for by "the general public". It wasn't. It was voted for primarily by the Japanese, since it was a Japanese survey.

Right, and it's a Japanese company who release console and arcade games only in the Japanese market and cater largely to a niche market of Japanese gamers. It's not surprising our votes don't count for much.

I think Cave releasing ios games and XBLA stuff that we can get our mitts on is being mis-interpreted as some kind of equal rights scenario. Their toe dipping in the western market doesn't mean much when the bulk of their profit is domestic. If our purchases mattered to them their now exhausted 360 back catalogue would have been region free, but that boat has sailed.
Like Deathsmiles, I think Cave would prefer a licenser to pay them a flat figure than bother catering to us directly.

So yeah, Japan voted, Japan got. What we think is irrelevant.
The future looks a little brighter since they opened an international shop, and time will tell how far they decide to push into the west. Maybe our vote will count for something next time.

[bcass]

I'm just correcting a common misapprehension. Still, you're making a lot of assumptions. There are no figures available for Guwange sales per region. For all we know, most sales may have been in the West. Same for iOS releases. Western sales of Deathsmiles already outnumber domestic sales. If they release any more ports in the West, it wouldn't be difficult for these releases to outnumber the domestic sales, which on the whole, have been pretty low.

[Skykid]

I'm just correcting a common misapprehension. Still, you're making a lot of assumptions. There are no figures available for Guwange sales per region. For all we know, most sales may have been in the West. Same for iOS releases. Western sales of Deathsmiles already outnumber domestic sales. If they release any more ports in the West, it wouldn't be difficult for these releases to outnumber the domestic sales, which on the whole, have been pretty low.

Deathsmiles western sales are through a licensor, unless Cave self-publish those sales aren't hard revenue for them. The assumptions are based on their business practices, it's not too difficult to see that they haven't given a fuck about us for any period of time up until the release of ios Espgaluda II.

[Zeron]

So how is this anyway visual wise is it like the ARCADE mode on other ports or?

[8 1/2]

So how is this anyway visual wise is it like the ARCADE mode on other ports or?

Yes. That's probably the best way to think of it.

[Strider77]

So, has anyone who has the LE opened their soundtrack CD? I'd really like to know if it contains the arrange soundtrack, or if it's just a cut-down original soundtrack

yeah.. it's the arranged tunes from these 360 ports on the disc.

Side note.... I'm happy to have bought this. I knew about the lack of a HD overhaul going in and was sad I was never going to see MMP in HD. I can and have gotten over that.... for months now actually.

But I am really let down by the slowdown issues, missing enemies, no infinite lives mode, and button layout options. The button layout issues and no infinite lives trick for pink sweets is the biggest bummer for me.

I have other issues that are nit picky but could get over, it's just that the list of small things combined with the larger issues are a bummer. I was less let down by DDP BLEX on the 360, even before the patch.

MMP I guess I'm less broken up over b/c the PCB is sitting in the same room as the port in my house. Still other ports like Galuda 2, DFK, ect on 360 get as much time as my PCB and it's not super perfect.

Oh well... better than nothing. Still I think MMP really deserved the stand alone disc treatment the other SH3 games got along with the HD overhaul.

8 1/2... I think your right on these being xbox live titles switched and swapped over to a retail disc release. That makes a lot of sense considering how the interface is for these.

[bcass]

the PCB is sitting in the same room as the port in my house.

Thanks for reminding us. For the millionth time.

If people are unhappy about some elements of these ports, you need to be saying as such on their Twitter/Facebook pages. Couldn't hurt to email their official 360 dev email address either: blog360@mail.cave.co.jp

Remember - they'll listen to this stuff if you're vocal enough about it. Don't just sit around expecting someone else to complain for you - do it yourself.

[Special World]

the PCB is sitting in the same room as the port in my house.

Thanks for reminding us. For the millionth time.

If people are unhappy about some elements of these ports, you need to be saying as such on their Twitter/Facebook pages. Couldn't hurt to email their official 360 dev email address either: blog360@mail.cave.co.jp

Remember - they'll listen to this stuff if you're vocal enough about it. Don't just sit around expecting someone else to complain for you - do it yourself.

Who should we address the email to? I'm loving the ports, but I would like to ask them to patch it up a little so I can enjoy Pink Sweets how it was meant to be played. I don't really know who to address it to, since I assume Yagawa didn't have terribly much to do with the porting.

[chempop]

Could try something like this

Dear CAVE,
We at shmups.system11 demand perfection. Giving us 2 games for 1/40 the cost of the PCBs isn't enough, they must behave just like the original boards! The time it takes you to fix this can't compare to the ammout on time we'll all be complaining on message boards, so make haste with the patch!

p.s. Don't forget to include intinite lives trick, and proper attract mode (my living room needs that arcade feeling)

[bcass]

Just address it "Dear Sir".

For a comprehensive list of all the faults found so far: http://www.cave-stg.com/?p=1041#more-1041

[Dave_K.]

I would like to ask them to patch it up a little so I can enjoy Pink Sweets how it was meant to be played.

Seriously, whats so wrong with Pink Sweets v1.00 that you can't enjoy getting your ass kicked? Play the game and show me the replay where you can get your 6th extra life without dying, and then I'll agree with your statement above.

[everlust]

My LE came in today, and damn, FINALLY am able to experience PS and MMP, these games are gdlk.
I can't be disappointed since I've got nothing to compare the ports too, plus, i love the visuals xD

But It does seem like there was basically no effort put into it lol...just like the recent Dreamcast Collection on PC and 360 but not as bad.
Only problem, looks like my 3rd 360 is on the way out...another E74 error due by the looks of it.
Somewhat gives me another reason to finally get that J360

I sure as hell have a lot of shooters to play now on this console. Too good.

[Special World]

Well, I was going to address it to a few people in particular. I had just assumed that the Japanese were sticklers about that sort of thing, but really I don't know anything about their emailing practices.

I was going to have two tiers in my email, with the stuff I felt absolutely needed to be fixed and the stuff that I would just plain like to see.

Needed:
PS Infinite Lives On/Off switch for 1.00
Rapid fire or alternate buttons for Pink Sweets
Fixed slowdown in MMP
Fixed missing enemies in MMP

Desired:
Initials input
Reroute the different modes (1.00,1.01, PS Score Rush, Manpuku, etc) to their own place on the mode select screen, rather than the porno-section options menu
Splitting up the 1.00 and 1.01 scoreboards

Really, I feel like that alone is a lot of work, so I won't press them for anything more, except maybe in a paragraph at the end. Yeah, yeah, it should have all been in here already, but I feel like Cave takes the approach of "let's see what they don't like before we fix it." I certainly hope that's the case, anyhow, as I'd love to see these patched (in hopefully less time than it took for DOJ). I think Cave has exceptional customer service, and I'd hate to lose that impression now.

I would like to say, though, that even in its current form, anybody who passes up this title is foolish (don't get carried away with this sentence). This is probably my favorite of all Cave's ports besides Futari. If you take these games as they are instead of as comparisons to the arcade originals, they're just flat out fantastic. I thought I'd only really play Muchi Muchi Pork, but I'm also loving the crap out of Pink Sweets and its excellent arrange mode. These are just A+ extremely fun arcade titles. Maybe the boss milking will piss me off someday, who knows. For right now, I couldn't ask for a more fun pair of shooters. I hope that someday soon, Cave will let Yagawa design a brand new game in typical Raizing style. I think DFK Black Label easily trumps 1.5, but both DFK releases left me a little cold, and God knows Cave could use the occasional injection of variety.

I still love em to death, though.

ED:

Dave K, putting the infinite lives trick in will give me one more thing to look forward to while I get my ass kicked for the next thirty years. Just because I never get the carrot doesn't mean I didn't get lean and mean trying.

[wariomona]

I really don't understand all the complaints about no infinite lives.
The game was never meant to be played like that anyway.
Just separate your hiscores into glitched version vs real version.
I will be disappointed in Cave if they actually do add in this glitch as a patch.
(Note I have yet to play PS)

[Dave_K.]

Dave K, putting the infinite lives trick in will give me one more thing to look forward to while I get my ass kicked for the next thirty years. Just because I never get the carrot doesn't mean I didn't get lean and mean trying.

I hear ya, I still haven't achieved the trick myself in regular play, and I've owned the game for several years now!

The game was never meant to be played like that anyway.

You mean playing the game at maximum rank without dying while obtaining four 1ups without score based extends? Yeah, you could be right.

[8 1/2]

I was going to have two tiers in my email, with the stuff I felt absolutely needed to be fixed and the stuff that I would just plain like to see.

Needed:
PS Infinite Lives On/Off switch for 1.00
Rapid fire or alternate buttons for Pink Sweets
Fixed slowdown in MMP
Fixed missing enemies in MMP

You think Cave doesn't know the slowdown is off in their ports, or that a few enemies are missing? You don't think they took the infinite lives trick out for a reason, even if you really disagree with their design decision? Do you really have the arrogance to think that the developer is unaware of these issues and needs US to tell them? Really?

It's fine to bitch about this shit, but when you start planning "helpful" emails you've simply lost your mind. I've been in Design now for the past three years and I've been lucky enough to go through the process of shipping a few titles. I promise you every developer is painfully aware of these sorts of issues. The fact that these releases even exist is astounding. I honestly don't understand how Cave makes any profit at all with such small sales numbers, but somehow they keep coming out with these.

Even that review from EOJ that you're so liberally cribbing from ended by saying to go enjoy the games, flaws or not. I'm not saying don't talk about it, but holy shit, don't embarrass yourself further and just spare the email, ok?

[moozooh]

Also, whatever you say in the email, talk only for yourself. Without any kind of "we at forum X", please.

[Aliquantic]

You don't think they took the infinite lives trick out for a reason, even if you really disagree with their design decision?

That one is actually kind of funny since Cave did take out the infinite lives in one of the PCB revisions, but then added it back shortly thereafter in one of the later revisions, so it appears they did listen to player input (or pressure). I'm also reminded of the Deathsmiles NA slowdown patch several months after release, even if Cave thought a lot of that slowdown was not intentional... and that's on purely gameplay grounds, of course.

[Jet Black]

I was going to have two tiers in my email, with the stuff I felt absolutely needed to be fixed and the stuff that I would just plain like to see.

Needed:
PS Infinite Lives On/Off switch for 1.00
Rapid fire or alternate buttons for Pink Sweets
Fixed slowdown in MMP
Fixed missing enemies in MMP

You think Cave doesn't know the slowdown is off in their ports, or that a few enemies are missing? You don't think they took the infinite lives trick out for a reason, even if you really disagree with their design decision? Do you really have the arrogance to think that the developer is unaware of these issues and needs US to tell them? Really?

At least they must fix the missing enemies in MMP, this looks like an unintended glitch.

[emphatic]

WHAT ABOUT THE MISSING ATTRACT MODE YOU GUYS!?

[-Bridget-]

I was going to have two tiers in my email, with the stuff I felt absolutely needed to be fixed and the stuff that I would just plain like to see.

Needed:
PS Infinite Lives On/Off switch for 1.00
Rapid fire or alternate buttons for Pink Sweets
Fixed slowdown in MMP
Fixed missing enemies in MMP

You think Cave doesn't know the slowdown is off in their ports, or that a few enemies are missing? You don't think they took the infinite lives trick out for a reason, even if you really disagree with their design decision? Do you really have the arrogance to think that the developer is unaware of these issues and needs US to tell them? Really?

It's fine to bitch about this shit, but when you start planning "helpful" emails you've simply lost your mind. I've been in Design now for the past three years and I've been lucky enough to go through the process of shipping a few titles. I promise you every developer is painfully aware of these sorts of issues. The fact that these releases even exist is astounding. I honestly don't understand how Cave makes any profit at all with such small sales numbers, but somehow they keep coming out with these.

Even that review from EOJ that you're so liberally cribbing from ended by saying to go enjoy the games, flaws or not. I'm not saying don't talk about it, but holy shit, don't embarrass yourself further and just spare the email, ok?

It's very nice, and refreshing, to see someone on here that actually understands all of this. I, for one, get REAL tired of people moaning and complaining, as if THEY could do a better job, when in reality, they often do NOT understand what this sort of development is like or how it all even works. I get annoyed whenever I hear someone whining about how "Oh, I wont buy this because it doesnt have scanlines, how could they be so LAZY". Just.... argh. Argh.

This is part of why I'm usually pretty positive about these releases; I DO know what goes into this sort of thing, and how bloody difficult and frustrating it can be to put all this together.

Sure, the games might be missing a couple of things, but really, they're SMALL things. AND, and, this is TWO Cave games on ONE disc. Sounds like a bloody epic deal, to me. And, frankly, it really IS a great deal. Iv'e been very much enjoying both games way more than I thought I was gonna. I'd originally thought that these 2 games might be kinda iffy.... because I'd heard so very, very little about either.... but really, these are pretty great.

My only real issue with either is the lack of a proper "rapid" button in PS' Arrange mode (I've an arthritis-ish condition, and smashing a button 10 kazillion times makes my arm hurt like hell, so I wont do it). But I rather found that I didnt NEED it (I didnt even notice this problem at first, I thought the concentrated fire WAS the only shot type), so I'm happy enough with it anyway.

And that's.... really the extent of my complaints. That's it, that's all I can think of.

Well, no, I have ONE other complaint, which is that the recurring midboss thing in PS is a complete snotwad. I havent been that irked by a boss or midboss since the Giga Wing boat.


And finally, I do have one question here: What's with this "Matsuri" mode for MMP? What are the differences between that and the normal arcade mode? I couldnt figure this out, though I havent had a whole lot of time with this mode yet, I only had time to try it out briefly today.

[BarfHappy]

WHAT ABOUT THE MISSING ATTRACT MODE YOU GUYS!?

Yep this is horrible...
perhaps they fear some operators would turn their 360s into arcade systems using some custom time-per-credit hardware...
I don't see any logical reason.

As for the missing enemies, i don't think it s a "playlist" corruption since each version has its own and as i understand it happens in various modes... so i guess it's more an enemy type that s missing from a description block...
Even if the enemy has the same sprites, there can be a dozen of different types, this helps because some have a lot of move types, you would hit the editor limit for once and have to make overly long enemy process subroutines with tons of branching as well. Anyway, should be easy to fix as long as you keep the team aware of the issue.

[charlie chong]

And finally, I do have one question here: What's with this "Matsuri" mode for MMP? What are the differences between that and the normal arcade mode? I couldnt figure this out, though I havent had a whole lot of time with this mode yet, I only had time to try it out briefly today.

you fight the pink sweets bosses after the normal muchi bosses and also start with 3 bomba instead of 2.
those pink sweets bosses go apeshit once you've pushed the muchi rank up
still got to the 5th stage on my first go tho despite a load of unfair instant lazer deaths from the pink sweets bosses.

[Sumez]

Does anyone seriously care about the attract mode?
I love the charms of this from arcade games, but it's what I get from buying PCBs or arcade carts, it's not what I buy home ports for - I don't think the ones in Cave's games were ever that interesting anyway (SNK's fighters probably have my favourite ones). It's like being unable to write your three letter initials on your high score. Seriously, get over it. If you want to identify yourself as "ASS" on the high score list, you should have snatched that Gamer Tag while it was available.

[defected78]

What happens at the point of the missing formations. Do you get a couple of seconds of dead flying with no activity?

[njiska]

You think Cave doesn't know the slowdown is off in their ports, or that a few enemies are missing? You don't think they took the infinite lives trick out for a reason, even if you really disagree with their design decision? Do you really have the arrogance to think that the developer is unaware of these issues and needs US to tell them? Really?

At least they must fix the missing enemies in MMP, this looks like an unintended glitch.

Well to be fair vocal complaining is why we have 4:3 mode in Guwange and judging by the implementation here, possibly why we have it in MMP/PS too. Cave does probably know the slowdown is off and isn't interested in vesting the time to fix it. As for infinite lives, that's been removed and restored in the CB version so who knows what will happen with this one, The missing enemies however may be a different story. If it's really a programming error than it very well may have been missed during development. It's important that customers bring such flaws to Cave's attention. And it is true that the louder the community complains, the better the response we'll get.

[Special World]

I was going to have two tiers in my email, with the stuff I felt absolutely needed to be fixed and the stuff that I would just plain like to see.

Needed:
PS Infinite Lives On/Off switch for 1.00
Rapid fire or alternate buttons for Pink Sweets
Fixed slowdown in MMP
Fixed missing enemies in MMP

You think Cave doesn't know the slowdown is off in their ports, or that a few enemies are missing? You don't think they took the infinite lives trick out for a reason, even if you really disagree with their design decision? Do you really have the arrogance to think that the developer is unaware of these issues and needs US to tell them? Really?

It's fine to bitch about this shit, but when you start planning "helpful" emails you've simply lost your mind. I've been in Design now for the past three years and I've been lucky enough to go through the process of shipping a few titles. I promise you every developer is painfully aware of these sorts of issues. The fact that these releases even exist is astounding. I honestly don't understand how Cave makes any profit at all with such small sales numbers, but somehow they keep coming out with these.

Even that review from EOJ that you're so liberally cribbing from ended by saying to go enjoy the games, flaws or not. I'm not saying don't talk about it, but holy shit, don't embarrass yourself further and just spare the email, ok?

Or maybe I was sending them an email to emphasize that this is definitely something the community would like to see, you pompous ass. The product's out, it'd be easy to rest on their laurels, but it's gonna be harder if people are actually requesting a patch. Don't act like you've done everything in life without somebody occasionally asking you to do it. That's horseshit.

Like, I'm sure they totally planned to have Guwange support 4:3, which is totally why they included it the game at release.

[everlust]

Yeah, surprisingly it seems like some people do care about missing attract mode...but it's such a small thing to complain about that i can never tell if people are serious.

As for the games, I've been glued to Pink Sweets Arrange.
It's just too fun, but I've just been messing around with the mode lately, haven't really tried any proper scoring runs.

Such an awesome bundle that its hard to choose what to play, so i seriously hope people don't skip out on this like I've read, as it's definitely one of CAVE's best offerings to date on this console. You get two amazing shooters in one, and some awesome extra game modes (Matsuri DLC included with the first print and Pink Sweets arrange mode). Only thing i don't like is MMP arrange xD, but everything else is boss. I haven't tried v1.00 of the titles yet though.

[hipgnosis]

I love attract modes, IMO they are quite essential when making the arcade feeling. It really is a shame this port is missing them. I always leave my ports on attract when I'm taking a break or when I stop playing.