Satazius (Astro Port)

[Ghegs]

From the creators of the awesome Gigantic Army and several shmup doujins comes Satazius. A horizontally scrolling shmup clearly inspired by the likes of Gradius and Thunder Force.

Official site, also has a patch available for download.

Video

2-stage trial

As per Astro Port style there's a lot of weapons to pick from. Playing through the trial almost made me weep tears of joy, I've missed these kinds of shmups so much. And if my Google Translate-skills are correct, the full version's coming out July 16th which is this Saturday. Instant purchase from me.

A physical copy of the game can be purchased from at least rancor's store and Eurotaku. Both deliver internationally.

[z0mbie90]

Just tested the trail and man I can just say wow .
Not a super big fan of Gradius but man I liked the trail alot. Can't wait to see the Full version.
I will keep my eyes opend!

Thanks Ghegs for making me find this game

[Ghegs]

Alright, played through the trial properly now. As was expected, finishing it on Normal unlocks Hard difficulty, finishing that unlocks Insane. Took a few tries to beat Insane, but it was still manageable, largely thanks to finding a good weapon combo. Like with Gigantic Army the superweapon feels a tad too powerful, the trial's bosses go down quickly with it and there doesn't seem to be any penalties for using it.

Scoring is fairly basic Astro Port. Picking up powerups when you're already at max strength/speed/shield gives you bonus points. This time each stage also has 10 bonus stars to find, collecting those gives an end-of-stage bonus. And playing on harder difficulties makes all the bonuses larger.

I'm really, really loving the stage design. Looks like good times. Now to just find a place that'll supply me with a physical copy of the game...

[ZOM]

Also just played the trial two times... feels great, game plays very well and there's always a frantic pace to it.
The bad: I really don't like how you can kill both bosses in the demo with just one charge shot each. Also, normal difficulty seems VERY easy... But then again, it's just the first two levels and there's at least two more difficulty settings included.
There's some elements that some could call "euroshmup-y" and detracting, but everything seems very well integrated and the weapon select intermission didn't do much against my enjoyment. Still... it's what we needed in this sea of danmaku doujins. Instant purchase.

[BIL]

Very cool - Gigantic Army made me an instant fan of these guys, and I dig 80s horis, so as I expected I love the trial. Definitely picking this one up.

edit: Just no-missed Insane - the controls are smooth as hell. Feels very improvisation-friendly while still creating the claustrophobia you'd expect from a Gradius-styled hori (just barely squeezed through a closing gap in stage one, only to get blown away point-blank by a neglected sniper turret more than once).

[ZOM]

Just beat insane - that's more like it! The chase destroyed me on my first few attempts, it's cool how the course changes from hard difficulty on.

[BIL]

I really like what I've seen of this game's scoring in the first two stages. Addictive little item-hunting system that ties into the stage designs perfectly. In the tunnel chase you can take the barricade routes and avoid the brunt of the boss's patterns, but if you want 10/10 stars you'll have him on your tail the whole way. And there's finally a compelling reason to zip up and down the classic infinite vertical scroll in stage 2, hunting for stars. Reminds me a little of Sexy Parodius and its mission objectives.

From a fan's perspective it's also nice to see a confluence of classic shooters' influences in the weapons... besides the classic Gradius laser there's the Star Soldier five-way shot, Darius-style four way missiles, Thunder Force's Hunter (doesn't go through walls - good), R-Typeish 90 degree lasers and that Gate of Thunder-esque firewall charge attack. I wonder if Options will show up later on. The ship design itself I'm not too crazy about, to be honest - could do with being a bit more compact. But the hitbox feels great.

The subweapons seem a bit imbalanced in favour of the 90 degree homing lasers (they seem to do the job of all other three trial subweapons), but it's apparent from stage 2 that they don't work well in tight confines, so I'm sure things may change.

[Klatrymadon]

Wow, the level design looks excellent! Love the emphasis on negotiating environmental hazards, some of which are clearly influenced directly by obstacles from Gradius and R-Type. Here's hoping this only gets more interesting in the later stages.

[rancor]

Now to just find a place that'll supply me with a physical copy of the game...

Hello



I'll have this on available at my site on Thursday (July 14th). They'll be $30.00 each.

[Ghegs]

Eurotaku has it in stock now, got my order in.

[Ghegs]

Got my copy in mail today and I am thoroughly enjoying it. As was expected, the Normal difficulty just isn't that difficult - I cleared it on my first try with five lives to spare. My only deaths happened in stage three. But what I didn't expect was how challenging it felt at times, even though my results say it's easy. I was more often than not held in a state of "oh shit am I going to make it". Even in Normal difficulty there was a healthy bulletcount and with all the environmental hazards around it can get quite claustrophobic at times.

There are so many Gradius-inspired parts to the game I lost count. There's a fortress stage, a high-speed stage, a boss rush...some very cool stuff in there, don't want to spoil everything. But it's not as harsh as Gradius, you can, for example, get through the high-speed stage without having to memorize a correct path. Good reflexes are enough. Of course, I don't know how much harsher it will be in Insane difficulty. But seeing how even the stage one cave's topography changes a bit depending on the selected difficulty level, it's fair to assume that something similar will take place here. Some memorization is certainly recommended, there are some very fast attacks that'll catch you off-guard the first time and scenery moving around that you'll want to watch out for.

Really looking forward to attacking Insane. I can easily recommend the game to anyone who likes Gradius and old-school horis.

Astro Port also put out a patch for the game. If my Google Translate-fu is correct, it fixes a bug where the player's score isn't saved after clearing the game. So that's something to do first.

[BIL]

Excellent, thanks for the impressions of the full version! It's sounding great. I think I know what you mean about that sense of danger, despite the relatively forgiving difficulty. I distinctly remember that in the trial while darting through stage 2's turret-infested rock formations. I think the fiery destruction helps the effect. The game feels fierce, much moreso than the typical Gradius or R-Type - wrecking battleships while weaving through flak in stage 2 is exhilarating. The screen is a sea of flames in the aftermath of a well-placed charge shot there.

I especially love how stark Astro Port's sound effects are in this and Gigantic Army. Shot impacts sounds like metal pummeling metal until something finally gives and obliteration ensues... "k-thnk! BOOM!"

[nimitz]

How does it compare to Hydorah?

from what i've seen it seems better is every conceivable way.

[Observer]

How does it compare to Hydorah?

from what i've seen it seems better is every conceivable way.

I hope you don't mind the following comment but I need some clearer info: you mean Hydorah is way better than Satazius or that Satazius beats the crap out of Hydorah?

Argh, I don't know why I'm failing so much at english recently.

[RNGmaster]

Argh, I don't know why I'm failing so much at english recently.

I wouldn't consider that a failure. The way he phrased it was ambiguous and could be taken either way. And your English is pretty much flawless anyways, in stark contrast to my retarded Japanese and Finnish skills.

[captain ahar]

Well, this just looks flippin fantastic. Thanks, ghegs.

edit: It is fantastic, I want it badly.

[nimitz]

How does it compare to Hydorah?

from what i've seen it seems better is every conceivable way.

I hope you don't mind the following comment but I need some clearer info: you mean Hydorah is way better than Satazius or that Satazius beats the crap out of Hydorah?

Argh, I don't know why I'm failing so much at english recently.

Considering Hydorah is rather awful, I do mind your comment.

[Ghegs]

I wouldn't call Hydorah "rather awful" myself, but I'd definitely say Satazius is better. The pacing is faster, there's no option to save between stages or alternative/optional routes and it's shorter. Satazius takes around 30 minutes, Hydorah is closer to an hour if I recall. Satazius sort of feels more arcade-y to Hydorah's console shmup.

That said, there are lots of similarities as well. They're both Gradius-inspired horis (Satazius even more) so obviously the stage designs and bosses will have lots in common. In both games 10 power-up items need to be collected to get either the main weapon or the subweapon to full strength, the weapons can be changed between stages and they need to be powered up separately. Both also have several super attacks to choose from.

I'd recommend just testing out Satazius' trial, that should give you a fairly good idea whether you'll like the game or not. Just remember to play it on Insane difficulty.

[Ghegs]

Been playing the full game's Insane difficulty for a while now and hol-ee shit it is out to get you. There's so much stuff flying around and the bosses' patterns get really nasty. I'm barely getting into stage 5, the bosses in stages 3 and 4 usually take a life or three off me. Hard difficulty added two new bossfights to the game, I haven't gotten far enough on Insane to say if there's a TLB waiting after all this madness.

It seems the choice of weaponry gets more important here. I've been going back and forth between different weapon loadouts, some weapons are better for some stages and sections, but then you have to leave this other weapon behind that's really good for this part...and so on. I thought having a main weapon + two subweapons would make the game way too simple, now I'm hoping I could bring all the subweapons in at once...

Also, the superweapon gets sort of nerfed in the full game. Many of the later bosses can only be damaged at their Core, which is often protected by mechanical tentacles, armor and such (where have I seen that before...) so the superweapon can just harmlessly bounce off the boss if the timing and/or positioning is bad. It definitely isn't the "push button to kill boss"-weapon anymore after the first two stages.

[Iaspis]

Also, the superweapon gets sort of nerfed in the full game. Many of the later bosses can only be damaged at their Core, which is often protected by mechanical tentacles, armor and such (where have I seen that before...) so the superweapon can just harmlessly bounce off the boss if the timing and/or positioning is bad. It definitely isn't the "push button to kill boss"-weapon anymore after the first two stages.

This. A great game overall. My only complaint is that if you run Win 7 and play the game in fullscreen, when you exit it breaks the icons of your taskbar pinned programs. IIRC, this happens in all Astroport games

[Ghegs]

My only complaint is that if you run Win 7 and play the game in fullscreen, when you exit it breaks the icons of your taskbar pinned programs. IIRC, this happens in all Astroport games

Hm, that's odd. Doesn't happen on my Win7 Pro 64-bit.

Anyhoo, I've now cleared the game on Insane difficulty. No new bosses were to be found. Didn't lose a life until Stage 5, but I died quite a lot in Stage 6 so I ended up clearing the game on my last life.

My ultimate goal is to no-miss the game while collecting all the stars. Dying makes you lose the stars collected and there's a 200k bonus for every life left at the end.

[S20-TBL]

I got the trial. Nice Thunder Force homage with the homing weapon. I find the right-angle lasers useful as well. And the huge wraparound level of Stage 2 is just pure love, reminds me of Xexex. You don't see that nowadays anymore.

Funny bit while playing on Hard mode is when I pop the lock-on Charge special right as the Stage 1 boss exits the stalactite cave. That was one of the most shocking insta-kills I ever had.

[Iaspis]

Oh, and the last boss looks a lot like the one in Axelay. Nice touch

[Udderdude]

Nice stuff going on here. I keep grabbing too many speedups before the first boss .. horis make me retarded :(

[Ghegs]

Oh, and the last boss looks a lot like the one in Axelay. Nice touch

Oh hey, you're right. Satazius' last boss' first form is clearly inspired by the same in Axelay, and both bosses follow the same "three forms before the fourth and last form detaches"-formula. Having never played the latter I missed that. Pretty cool.

Might be interesting to catalogue all the references Satazius makes.

I keep grabbing too many speedups before the first boss .. horis make me retarded

I always play with full speed, the others feel too slow.

[mjclark]

Astro Port are sooo good in the way that they distil out everything that's good about a shmup subgenre and then put it in a single game with mechanics (and graphics for that matter) that are simple and satisfying cos there's no unnecessary shit in there, just the pure shmupness- a bit like what Xona Games did with Score Rush.
I loved Sonic Ironstorm and Demolition Gunner for these reasons and Satazius the same- there's something kinda "clean" about it in a really good way.

Nice too see Lionel Ritchie on Shmups Forum too.
As the great man once said: Oh, what a ceiling
When your dancing on the feeling

I expect he plays Ikaruga all night long...all night...all night long...all night...

[Ghegs]

Got back into Satazius after a two-week break and not playing it for a while helped my game, sort of. I got my second clear of Insane which was a long time a-coming, but it was again on my last life.

I'm 99% sure the practice mode either makes the enemies weaker or your weapons stronger. While practicing I always kill bosses and larger enemies faster than I do on a real run, even if I have the same weapon power levels.

[Zapf]

I apologize if I missed a larger post about this, but Capcom/Nyu Media are localizing this and several other games, and releasing on various dd services. Satazius comes out the 20th for 5.99

http://www.shacknews.com/article/71487/ ... s-westward

[MathU]

Whoa, Capcom? They better not shove some DRM into it if they're selling it through Steam.

[beatsgo]

So it seems, was skeptical of Nyu just localizing these games themselves. I wonder what purpose would Capcom be in this partnership besides financial support and advertising?