Recent Arcade Shmup Developers. What are they doing now?

[trap15]

& Mr Yagawa - has he stopped?

Yagawa worked on Akai Katana, and pretty sure he helped out with SDOJ as well. I think we're going to start seeing more of him soon.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I'm so disinterested in the way arcade shumps evolved in recent years that the most recent one I keep playing is Raiden III (nearly a decade old soon; mind you, seven years used to be a generation and a half, hardware-wise). Thus I don't think the arcades are where it's at anymore for the genre. The arcades are not where the audience is anymore. Dunno about Far East, but I don't live there. There's the internet now, though.

[Bee Cool]

Well if the most recent game you like is Raiden III, I don't think you liked many Shmups from the mid 90's onward, given that Raiden is a pretty big throwback as it is.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Raiden III's hitbox is pretty akin to that of Battle Garegga, come to think of it. Also, when Raiden Fighters hit MAME (for me), they felt pretty familiar thanks to Raiden III. The grazing felt just right.
Can't say the same about Ibara, though. The graphics are KINDA good and it DOES remind me of Garegga, but the PS2 port feels too punishing to me.
I also kinda liked Shikigami no Shiro 1, but boy, was it tough. II & III felt not nearly as tough, if better looking, but not quite as good either.

Well if the most recent game you like is Raiden III, I don't think you liked many Shmups from the mid 90's onward, given that Raiden is a pretty big throwback as it is.

I liked Gradius V (small hitbox there) and Hydorah too, so it's not me. It's just the arcades.
Vertical-wise, I liked Zanac Neo and Sonic Wings Special, so there's that.

[Bee Cool]

What don't you like? I mean it's fine if you don't like bullet hells but those aren't that recent nor arcade specific, and it's also fine if you don't like complex scoring systems but again those aren't recent.

"arcade shooters" is not really a sub-genre of shooters, G.Rev Milestone and Cave make very different shooters and they are all from the last 6-7 years. I don't see how you can dismiss them by saying that you don't like the trends they are going towards without even mentioning the trends. Even then it doesn't really make sense, because shooters that are not made for the arcade have also been trending towards more elaborate systems and patterns.

[DEL]

trap15 wrote;

Yagawa worked on Akai Katana, and pretty sure he helped out with SDOJ as well. I think we're going to start seeing more of him soon.

Thanks for the update
I just hope he does more of his 'own' style shooters in the near future. I prefer his output to the Cave bullet hell stuff.

For me, this is the most relevant thread on the forum right now. I look at the future Jap X360 release list and its all but empty and I want to play new shooters other than Cave. I'd better get a Jap XBox Live account

[AntiFritz]

trap15 wrote;

Yagawa worked on Akai Katana, and pretty sure he helped out with SDOJ as well. I think we're going to start seeing more of him soon.

Thanks for the update
I just hope he does more of his 'own' style shooters in the near future. I prefer his output to the Cave bullet hell stuff.

For me, this is the most relevant thread on the forum right now. I look at the future Jap X360 release list and its all but empty and I want to play new shooters other than Cave. I'd better get a Jap XBox Live account

Considering all 3 of his cave games flopped hard, I cant imagine them letting him make any more.

[DEL]

^I didn't know that they flopped . I guess the Cave fans wanted more of the same bullet curtains and were surprised when they found that these strange new 'Cave released' shooters involved medalling, slightly wider gaps and faster bullets.

[BPzeBanshee]

From what Yagawa said in the last interview he's got some ideas for something really radical but isn't sure whether anyone else will think it's a good idea. I suspect if we see another title that's predominantly handled by Yagawa it won't be like anything else we've seen yet - neither in Cave's nor Raizing's department.

[Obiwanshinobi]

What don't you like?

Bullets coming through my ship without damaging it. The only game where it doesn't rub me the wrong way is Dangun Feveron.
It sorta happens in Raiden III, but I can stand it (the grazing sounds cool, if doesn't make even the sort of sense it makes in Psyvariar). Does happen in Gradius V too, but I still like the game.
I also dislike the kind of deliberate slowdown management prelevant in shmups of today.

[pixelcorps]

I work with one of the gigawing artists, I'll ask her about takumi the next time we go drinking.

[shmuppyLove]

From what Yagawa said in the last interview he's got some ideas for something really radical but isn't sure whether anyone else will think it's a good idea.

I'm calling it now: Touhou Daifukkatsu 1.5 Black Label

[trap15]

I work with one of the gigawing artists

Σ(ﾟДﾟ) Wow! That's pretty awesome!

[mesh control]

I work with one of the gigawing artists, I'll ask her about takumi the next time we go drinking.

Please do!

Best developer.

[BPzeBanshee]

From what Yagawa said in the last interview he's got some ideas for something really radical but isn't sure whether anyone else will think it's a good idea.

I'm calling it now: Touhou Daifukkatsu 1.5 Black Label

I was thinking Recca Recca Steak. Like Muchi Muchi Pork but with more trippy backgrounds and Recca.

[O. Van Bruce]

From what Yagawa said in the last interview he's got some ideas for something really radical but isn't sure whether anyone else will think it's a good idea.

I'm calling it now: Touhou Daifukkatsu 1.5 Black Label

That woldn't be halve bad... Ive been having wet dreams for some time about Cave buying Touhou and taking that franchise to a new level. ZUN is getting old and it's doing things very wrong on the gaming department.

[trap15]

I was thinking Recca Recca Steak. Like Muchi Muchi Pork but with more trippy backgrounds and Recca.

I would jizz all over that. Make it happen YGW!

[Mero]

I'll tell you what MOSS is doing now, they've had a new logo!!! Link

p.s I think it's meant to say 2012 not 2011

[Op Intensify]

That's an awesome new logo. Looks like if Picasso painted a Miclus.

[adversity1]

Yeah, apparently the NESiCA version of Raiden IV includes the Xbox360 mode which had a new stage (?) as well as the original arcade release, plus of course Raiden III. You can also use the Fairy from the get-go.

Looks like they put some work into the NESiCA version which bodes well for their survival (even if I'm not a Raiden fan).

[Op Intensify]

Any idea how profitable all these NESiCA shmup releases have been? Aren't there only like five NESiCA cabinets with vertical monitors operating in all of Japan?

Maybe Cave can get a revised SDOJ port out on the platform.

[nZero]

Yeah, apparently the NESiCA version of Raiden IV includes the Xbox360 mode which had a new stage (?) as well as the original arcade release, plus of course Raiden III. You can also use the Fairy from the get-go.

Looks like they put some work into the NESiCA version which bodes well for their survival (even if I'm not a Raiden fan).

2 new stages, along with some changed enemy and item placement, if they directly backported the 360 mode. I generally like the extra variety that comes from a few more stages/bosses, but I still can't believe they left the loop in that mode-- that is a looong 2-ALL for a modern arcade shooter. Hope I'll get the chance this year to track down a NESiCA cab running it and try it out.

[adversity1]

Yeah, apparently the NESiCA version of Raiden IV includes the Xbox360 mode which had a new stage (?) as well as the original arcade release, plus of course Raiden III. You can also use the Fairy from the get-go.

Looks like they put some work into the NESiCA version which bodes well for their survival (even if I'm not a Raiden fan).

2 new stages, along with some changed enemy and item placement, if they directly backported the 360 mode. I generally like the extra variety that comes from a few more stages/bosses, but I still can't believe they left the loop in that mode-- that is a looong 2-ALL for a modern arcade shooter. Hope I'll get the chance this year to track down a NESiCA cab running it and try it out.

Latest Arcadia has some details on the NESiCA version:

Perfect Course -> Port of 360 mode, with 7 stages as mentioned above. Re-balanced for NESiCA release and includes arrange version of soundtrack. Fairy unlocked. Appears to be no loop. I doubt Taito would allow a loop on a machine that could also be used for fighters.

Moss president Komazawa also mentions in an interview when asked about possibilities of a new Raiden sequel that he would like to put one out but he would need to hear an interesting idea for a new weapon to include in the game.

Op Intensify : vertical NESiCA cabinets are indeed extremely rare at the moment but the latest firmware revision has allowed any game to be played with a vertical screen orientation, so we may see more of this. NESiCA is apparently also not exclusive to Taito cabinets. Apparently there's one running at Mikado on a Blast City. There are many more horizontal NESiCA cabinets in game centers though and the system has a growing presence.

Whether the games are profitable or not is info only the arcade divisions of these companies have, but if they're putting their games on it, it's a good bet that it is profitable. If not in the short term, in the long term. At the very least there is much less financial risk compared to board production, especially when you consider that updates/bug fixes are easily done on NESiCA and most of these companies have minimal dev/debug resources at this point.

[cj iwakura]

Alfa System do a lot of second party work, namely stuff like Phantasy Star Portable and the Tales of the World games.

Sad there's no more Shiki, but I'm glad they're still in business. They do other good stuff too(I love Elemental Gearbolt).

[Op Intensify]

Re-balanced for NESiCA release and includes arrange version of soundtrack

Wow, I hope we see this as a patch/DLC for the 360 version.

Sad there's no more Shiki, but I'm glad they're still in business.

Agreed. Having now played every one of the Shikis aside from the visual novel, I think they did all they could with the formula. There's nothing else they could conceivably add on to it after Hi-Tension Max, aside from more characters, and Shiki 3 already had far more than necessary. Another sequel would have been redundant.

[cj iwakura]

Sayo Yuuki appears in Phantasy Star Portable(seriously, she's a shopkeeper), so there's that.

[pixelcorps]

Ok, so I caught Ito san and asked her about Takumi while she was chugging a few glasses of wine at a nomikai.

She told me that takumi did go bust, and she doesn`t know the wehereabouts of any of the other gigawing 1/2 staff, but if she does catch up she said she`sd pass on the info there are overseas fans.

Ito san was quite delighted and impressed there are overseas gamers that know of and still enjoy the series. so there you go.

[Kollision]

Honestly, this almost brought tears of sadness to my tired shmupper's eyes.

I only knew them after they were gone, but I miss Takumi.

[BulletMagnet]

Skonec: Dead, made DS shovelware before dying

It would appear that Skonec is indeed alive for the moment, though their most recent project doesn't exactly hold out much hope for Psyvariar III.

[BPzeBanshee]

Well look on the bright side, with all the cash revenue coming in from making the most of K-Pop this will surely provide funds for such a thing.