Konami brings Otomedius Excellent (Xbox 360) to U.S.

[Jeneki]

Well crap, I know I've been playing too many shmups when the first thing I notice on a cover art full of scantily-clad girls is Twinbee.

[Udderdude]

Look! It says GRADIUS on it! It's got the nostalgia factor going for it. And tits!

I predict this will be a hot seller.

[dieKatze88]

This was only posted an hour ago and there are already five comments begging for a PS3 release.

Well, duh. People suck.

[Paradigm]

They should get rid of that Gradius reference on the cover.

Trash like this doesn't deserve to be associated with proper games.

[BulletMagnet]

Well crap, I know I've been playing too many shmups when the first thing I notice on a cover art full of scantily-clad girls is Twinbee.

Holy crow, that IS Winbee: has a Twinbee cameo not been mentioned yet, or did I just miss it?

[nZero]

Well crap, I know I've been playing too many shmups when the first thing I notice on a cover art full of scantily-clad girls is Twinbee.

Holy crow, that IS Winbee: has a Twinbee cameo not been mentioned yet, or did I just miss it?

Madoka = Twinbee, same as in Otome G

[BulletMagnet]

Ah, right, that one minor character, I'd pretty much forgotten she existed, heh. Guess it's about as close to a "meaningful" appearance from the series that one could expect nowadays.

[dieKatze88]

Ah, right, that one minor character, I'd pretty much forgotten she existed, heh. Guess it's about as close to a "meaningful" appearance from the series that one could expect nowadays.

Madoka is pretty easy to forget considering how weak she is in Gorgeous Mode / All of Excellent.

In arcade she's pretty broken though.

[drauch]

UH, awesome. I'm gonna have so many loli pillows this year.

[dieKatze88]

This news is now making its way around the net, in a "This is it folks, the game is coming out" kind of way.

http://www.siliconera.com/2011/06/01/ot ... -costs-30/

http://uk.kotaku.com/5807439/the-very-s ... can-shores

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/06/01/otome ... illowcase/

And Konami issued a press release:

KONAMI ANNOUNCES RELEASE DATE AND SPECIAL EDITION FOR OTOMEDIUS EXCELLENT


Fans of the Classic Side-Scrolling Popular Japanese Shooter Will Finally Get Their Hands on the Game This Summer


KONAMI today released the launch date and Special Edition information for Otomedius Excellent, which is now slated for release in July 19, 2011. Also announced today is the addition of a Special Edition version of North American release of the Gradius-inspired series, which includes a 2-sided pillowcase featuring the girls of OTOMEDIUS, an exclusive art book, and a single disc OTOMEDIUS soundtrack. The standalone game will retail for $29.99 while the Special Edition will be available for $49.99. More details of the Special Edition will be revealed at a later date.


Key Features Include:

• Classic Gradius-style gameplay gets a stunning update. Experience 2D side-scrolling shoot-em-up gameplay like never before.
• Brilliant graphics and an excellent soundtrack. Environments are rendered in hi-definition and complemented by thrilling music.
• Lovely characters to pilot through an expanded world. Choose from nine characters on-disc to battle through all-new stages of thrilling shmup action!
• Three's company! Team up with a friend or two over Xbox Live Arcade or on one Xbox 360 to have help obtaining hard-to-get items!
• Eye-popping Gallery mode. View your unlocked stills and graphics in a new Gallery that grows as you progress through the game.

Press release screenshots and game cover at http://konami.com/download

[drauch]

DON'T BELIEVE IT. This is the new Duke Nukem Forever.

[BulletMagnet]

DON'T BELIEVE IT. This is the new Duke Nukem Forever.

I think that title's been usurped by the PAL version of Raiden Fighters Aces, sadly.

[drauch]

Yeah, fair enough. Otomedius is the Diablo III.

[mouser]

Probably gonna get this since they put a Belmont in there to rep Castlevania....I liked Gradius V, so this should be good...right?

[Blue_Ray]

DON'T BELIEVE IT. This is the new Duke Nukem Forever.

Kinda fitting because there's actually a composer for Duke Nukem Forever whose music will be in one of the BGM packs. ^_^;

[Jeneki]

I liked Gradius V, so this should be good...right?

If you pick up an Otomedius game, it's best to go in with very low expectations. Especially not Gradius V expectations.

[Mad Mage]

So anyone know what the voice options are gonna be like? I'm not getting it if it's English only and I don't care if you think that's stupid.

[dieKatze88]

So anyone know what the voice options are gonna be like? I'm not getting it if it's English only and I don't care if you think that's stupid.

Amazon had something about it having the Japanese voices.

[Mad Mage]

If Amazon does, I'm totally not seeing it

http://www.amazon.com/Otomedius-Excelle ... 848&sr=8-1

EDIT Oh, it's says it in the collector's edition but not the normal one. I'm assuming this is just an oversight on behalf of amazon, right?

[mouser]

I liked Gradius V, so this should be good...right?

If you pick up an Otomedius game, it's best to go in with very low expectations. Especially not Gradius V expectations.

Started to try and look into this game a bit more. So....are all the levels.....how should put this...."sparse?" From the levels I've seen, they look kind of empty.

And I don't know about everyone else here, but.....I like boobs and stuff as much as the next guy (Ibara/Pink Sweets fan here)...but isn't this going a bit far?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LN4LdK79Zz0#t=10m16s

*shrug* Don't like passing up on games with low chances of localization to begin with...but...if I'm gonna give up my dignity to play a game like this, the game had better be good. The dood in the link seemed to like the game, so I was wondering if anyone could link me to a more critical, in-depth review.

[drauch]

Everyone loves jigglin' boobies. Not everyone loves shmups.

[mouser]

Everyone loves jigglin' boobies.

For you then

[drauch]

I still stand by my statement.

[dieKatze88]

Honestly, people complain about the difficulty of Otomedius (all 3 of them) all the time, but they also refuse to step away from their crutches. I have yet to see someone bitch too heavily about Otomedius's difficulty when they stop using Wave and homing missile at the same time. Yes, when you can sit in the middle of the screen and your lasers go through the geometry, the game is easy. Duh. Well played. I posted the Esmeralda brokenness video because it's funny as hell, not because I play like that when I want to have fun. You know what, call me back when you've been to the 14th loop using Dagger as your laser. Better than that, do it on Gesshi Hanafuuma. The game is customizable, just because there are first order optimal strategies doesn't mean you have to jump right to them and declare the game boring because you've broken it.

Yes, Otomedius Excellent is easier for a loop or three and then its Gradius roots set in. Its much harder to recover in Otomedius Excellent than it was in Arcade or Gorgeous, thank god, Gorgeous practically gave you half a level of invincibility frames after losing a life, Otomedius Excellent does NOT give you enough time to even get your options. Its a few tradeoffs that make the game easier during the first three loops (because that's where the unlocks are, and beginners can get the unlocks if they can actually play the levels) and let the game still be a difficult game that follows in the footsteps of Gradius later. Think the Platonic Bursts are broken? Don't use them, or better yet, use Madoka, Aoba Anoa or Eurl Tron, their Platonic Bursts are useless (Well, Anoa's is useful in exactly one situation. I'll let you figure it out.)

This mix of difficulty curve and user friendliness might be what the genre needs to actually grow, so yeah, its easy early on for anyone who's played a challenging Gradius game before in their lives (read: anything but Gradius V then), but it lets someone be awesome at the game long enough to think there's something to the genre. That has value. There's nothing wrong with this game, we're just all conditioned to jump straight to being broken because every other game is hard enough that you have to if you want to survive.

[NzzpNzzp]

The game is customizable, just because there are first order optimal strategies doesn't mean you have to jump right to them and declare the game boring because you've broken it.

First order optimal strategies like... using forcefields? I mean, I know in Gaiden you could modify your gauge and use limit to stay invincible throughout stages, but at least you had to go out of your way to do that, and you couldn't keep it up against bosses. In X all you have to do to break the game is to buy a forcefield, and it's not like that's hard, or requires customisation to enable.
When the only way to make the game difficult is to go out of your way to find the worst weapons possible, and the worst characters possible, and then to avoid using charge attacks and bombs, and to loop it several times, I think that actually does make the game too easy.

And I got to like loop 10 and only died once with default Lord British (who sucks, I don't think she's even capable of beating the last boss before it times out), so it's not like I'm relying on the overpowered stuff either. Or at least not the overpowered stuff that's not available to every character.

[Jeneki]

I have yet to see someone bitch too heavily about Otomedius's difficulty when they stop using Wave and homing missile at the same time.

Are those unlockables? Most people who I hear complain got the 1cc on their first or second play, with the default lasers, 2-way, missile, etc, whatever is on the character they picked. "Cheese" unlockables is not the problem, because you have to stay interested long enough to earn them.

[dai jou bu]

This mix of difficulty curve and user friendliness might be what the genre needs to actually grow, so yeah, its easy early on for anyone who's played a challenging Gradius game before in their lives (read: anything but Gradius V then), but it lets someone be awesome at the game long enough to think there's something to the genre. That has value. There's nothing wrong with this game, we're just all conditioned to jump straight to being broken because every other game is hard enough that you have to if you want to survive.

I'm sorry, but a game can both be user-friendly and challenging at the same time. The first Gradius game was nowhere near of a pushover as Excellent was. The difficulty of Excellent is borderline insulting even for newcomers as the first Otomedius game made me sweat at times.

It's not just the difficulty either that's terribly wrong with Excellent, it just feels sloppy in general, which is the common complaint most people have already made about the game. Personally, I'm pretty iffed that the Konami of old can properly balance the ring laser of the Jade Knight but the modern one can't. I can accept the fact that there's always ways to break a game, but the method should feel like you really had to think of something the developers didn't imagine someone doing instead of them just handing you the I WIN button (ie- just pick Esmeralda). If this is the first game a shmup neophyte picks up, their brains would already be too occupied to even consider using a platonic break in their thought processes because they have to focus first on firing, learning what does and doesn't kill them, and learning how the power-up system works, and by the time they would figure those out, they'd then realize how powerful some of the platonic breaks are, making the game even more easier than before they came to grips with basic shmup survival.

I could go on and on about what else was sloppy about the game, but suffice to say that it's pretty sad that the developers of Otomedius Excellent are easily beaten by a [url=http://trouble_witches.mails.ne.jp/index.htm]doujin game[/url] in just about everything regarding the qualities of a shmup.

[Skykid]

Honestly, people complain about the difficulty of Otomedius (all 3 of them) all the time, but they also refuse to step away from their crutches. I have yet to see someone bitch too heavily about Otomedius's difficulty when they stop using Wave and homing missile at the same time. Yes, when you can sit in the middle of the screen and your lasers go through the geometry, the game is easy. Duh. Well played. I posted the Esmeralda brokenness video because it's funny as hell, not because I play like that when I want to have fun. You know what, call me back when you've been to the 14th loop using Dagger as your laser. Better than that, do it on Gesshi Hanafuuma. The game is customizable, just because there are first order optimal strategies doesn't mean you have to jump right to them and declare the game boring because you've broken it.

Yes, Otomedius Excellent is easier for a loop or three and then its Gradius roots set in. Its much harder to recover in Otomedius Excellent than it was in Arcade or Gorgeous, thank god, Gorgeous practically gave you half a level of invincibility frames after losing a life, Otomedius Excellent does NOT give you enough time to even get your options. Its a few tradeoffs that make the game easier during the first three loops (because that's where the unlocks are, and beginners can get the unlocks if they can actually play the levels) and let the game still be a difficult game that follows in the footsteps of Gradius later. Think the Platonic Bursts are broken? Don't use them, or better yet, use Madoka, Aoba Anoa or Eurl Tron, their Platonic Bursts are useless (Well, Anoa's is useful in exactly one situation. I'll let you figure it out.)

This mix of difficulty curve and user friendliness might be what the genre needs to actually grow, so yeah, its easy early on for anyone who's played a challenging Gradius game before in their lives (read: anything but Gradius V then), but it lets someone be awesome at the game long enough to think there's something to the genre. That has value. There's nothing wrong with this game, we're just all conditioned to jump straight to being broken because every other game is hard enough that you have to if you want to survive.

Excuses excuses. Otomedius series is average gaming, leave it at that.

[dieKatze88]

Konami uploaded the Japanese Promotional trailer with English subtitles today.

http://www.konami.com/otomedius

If you've seen the Japanese version, you are missing nothing but what is most likely the highest res picture of the new logo so far at the end of the trailer.

[BulletMagnet]

Well, at least they didn't ridicu-censor it this time.