Anyone have or played "In the Hunt" for the PSone?

[stoneroses]

I was always kind curious about this one but heard bad reviews of it when it first came out. I was thinking of looking for it in the used bins now before it gets too hard to find.

[dave4shmups]

Well I have it up for trade in the trading station! It's one of my PS1 shmups that I'm looking to trade, 'cause I have an import PSTwo now.

It's a pretty good shmup, and the PS1 version is faster then the Saturn one.

Your sub does move slowly, but the firepower is great, and the hand-drawn graphics are simply beautiful-very much like the Metal Slug series.

[KrazyJoker]

In The Hunt is a very good shmup. Has some really nice graphics too. I'm glad I only paid $5 for it back in '99........lol

[Neon]

mediocre (sorry dave).

but since you stated in the temp forum you only play domestic psx games, you might love it.

[Cthulhu]

I'm a big fan of this game. It's a cool little side-scroller with neat powerups and some pretty wicked bosses. The visuals do indeed look Metal Slug-ish with a sort of "heavy" hand-drawn look. I don't recall how many continues the home version gives you, but the arcade version is HARD. Not the sort of game I'd want to try and 1CC either due to some cheap deaths throughout. Tons of fun anyway though, and the US version can be had for cheap.

[iatneH]

I got this game off ebgames.com for a cheap price, and I'm fairly certain they should still have copies available.

I saw the mediocre reviews too, but I fell in love with this game as soon as I tried it. I don't know why some people say it's slow, because it feels pretty frantic to me sometimes!
And I LOVE the visuals! They're almost... cute! Nothing like "awww, deformed submarines <3" and then seeing two halves of your sub sinking to the bottom of the ocean :p

[TWITCHDOCTOR]

I've always refered to it as "Metal Sub", since it plays more like a Metal Slug game, but yet you control a submarine.
In other words, its not a "scrolling" shooter per say. The screen moves when you do...again much like Metal Slug.
Its ok, I've never owned it, nor do I plan on buying it.
The sprites are great looking though, again Metal Slug! It plays VERY slow, with even more flicker than R-Type on the Turbo Grafx-16.
Personally, I 'd rather just play Metal Slug.

My advice? Spend that $5.00 on a used Genesis/SNES shmup instead.

[Randorama]

The game was the second-to-last work of the "Nazca/Metal Slug team" (at least the core programmers) before they left Irem, to my knowledge, last one should be geo storm (or gunfrontier 2). The game per se is relatively slow (as you decide when to advance), but pretty frantic (lots of bullets from every side). Unless you have specific taboos, MAME emulates it flawlessly.

[Neon]

mame lacks the cheesy yet upbeat console-specific background music, thoe

[system11]

In The Hunt is a great game, if you can play through the slowdown that plagues it pretty badly. Actually the PS1 version is the best of the lot, suffering less slowdown than the PCB and Saturn revisions.

[Randorama]

Ah, bloodf,did you know that latest mame versions have resolved the slowdown issue?The game runs at a full speed, which makes it very hard (and even a better game ) .

[Bydobasher]

It does run nicely in MAME, and there are a few graphical flourishes in the PCB that didn't make their way into the PSX port (e.g. first level icebergs).

I've always liked this game. As Rando says, it moves slowly but it certainly isn't boring, or easy, especially the PCB version which lacks the shield item. The artwork and animation is really excellent. It's obvious that Irem is where that Metal Slug graphical style originated. (Although it started much earlier than this game -- I think R-Type II (1989) is the earliest Irem title that shows touches of what would eventually become Metal Slug.)

Oh, and Rando, I think you're thinking of Gun Force 2 -- which pretty much is Metal Slug minus the charming character sprites. Gun Frontier, as you well know, is a Taito shmup. Which reminds me ... why is it that the attract mode for Metal Black says something about being project Gun Frontier 2? Is it just that Gun Frontier and Metal Black share the same programmers?

[Randorama]

Eheheh, i did check 3 times to avoid writing Gun Frontier...damn my Taito fanboyism

But yes, the basic game (without shield) is pretty frantic, especially the japanese version, which gives you way less time (this is actually an issue, as you're forced to advance at a steady rate, else you will time out). Also, the final boss is a nightmare

[Randorama]

Eheheh, i did check 3 times to avoid writing Gun Frontier...damn my Taito fanboyism

But yes, the basic game (without shield) is pretty frantic, especially the japanese version, which gives you way less time (this is actually an issue, as you're forced to advance at a steady rate, else you will time out). Also, the final boss is a nightmare

About freudian lapses: yes, Metal Black has been produced by the same guys of Gun frontier.

[Turrican]

It's a very good game. Grab it if you find it cheap. The arranged soundtrack does have some very beautiful tunes.

You could find it annoying however if you like your shooters fast.

[LoneSage]

I don't consider it a shmup; just a run 'n gunner, sans the running.

Either way, it's a wonderful lil, short game...I think it's actually pretty rare to find out in the wild, I was incredibly lucky to find a copy of it in my area.

Metal Slug was Nazca's last game; Nazca developed MS1, but SNK took over Nazca. It's confusing.

[Sundance]

I've always loved In The Hunt. I originally bought it as a console but just recently saw the actual arcade for it. And it was in a really weird lookn' cabinet. I'm not sure if that was the actual release cabinet but it caught my eye. Fun game though.

[stoneroses]

Thanks all !

Twitchdoctor ... "Metal Sub" LOL, that is reason enough to look for this game.

[landshark]

I've toyed with this game through mame on and off for the past few months.

I was looking for this game for a long time as I couldn't remember what "that sub game I remember seeing at the arcade" back in '94 or sometime around there (end of high school).

Found it late last year and haven't had much time to play it. But it does look nice.

[Neon]

I was playing it in mame today, I actually enjoyed it. Much better than I remember the psx version I once owned being. Nice challenge too, but more metal slug than a shmup, it's not 'bullet-hell.'

Might pick it up for the Saturn...the pad overcomes the slowdown difference for me.

[hoopy]

I remember being blown away by In the Hunt in the arcades. It was certainly an impressive looking game in it's day, and still is today when you consider the quality of the hand drawn 2D graphics, and the amount of coding work. If like me you enjoy playing games like Metal Slug, Last Resort, Dragon Breed and R-Type II, then I'd definitely recommend it.

The PS1 port is excellent too. I still play it from time to time. They definitely used the original arcade graphics for the port, with only a few minor omissions. Not sure if it was recoded, but if so they did a great job.

The gameplay is kinda sedate when compared to a modern Cave shooter, but it has a charm of it's own.

The game has slowdown, but this is common in old-school shooters that pushed their respective hardware to the limits. Slowdown ended up being integral to the game designs, allowing players more time to navigate more complex sections of the game, enjoy.

[Battlesmurf]

I think I've mentioned this before- I keep the PSX one and the PCB one on hand. PCB is great for the cabs- but the PSX version has the speed up code that makes things a little interesting. I don't have a working Saturn to compare those to, though. Great game though.

Speed up

Pause the game, hold Triangle + R2 and resume the game.

Slow down

Pause the game, hold Triangle + L2 and resume the game.


EDIT: Was that really 2007 the last time I talked about that damn game here?
http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?p=290933

[ST Dragon]

I was always kind curious about this one but heard bad reviews of it when it first came out. I was thinking of looking for it in the used bins now before it gets too hard to find.

Yes it was one of the 1st games I got for the PSX back in 1997 along with RayStorm & CastleVania SOTN & Soul Blade.
It's a great shooter with gorgeous hand-drawn graphics and an awesome remixed soundtrack. The disc features both the Arcade & Remixed music for you to choose, but the arranged version is where its at!

[EmperorIng]

The Saturn version isn't all too terrible (though the game is so hard I've yet to beat it even with baby-mode 9 credits thrown my way!), and the slowdown isn't a game-breaker.

The game seems to want to be, however.

Meaning, and I don't know why, but the Saturn In The Hunt only works on a US Saturn when the game feels like it. It's very frustrating to continuously load the game with no visible effect on performance. Does anyone know why? I'm using an Action Replay 4-in-1 cart in the Saturn, btw.

And the music, design, bosses, and graphics are all top-notch, no matter the version.

[MNK]

I used to play the psx version of ITH quite a lot some 6 or 7 years ago and managed to clear it in 1 credit on a regular basis. Picked up the original PCB a few months ago but havn't planned to put any serious time into it yet.

One thing that's a bit odd when comparing the arcade version and Psone port is that the levels appear in a different order. On Psone you go through South pole - Channel - Seabed ruins - Sunken town - Deep dark sea - Enemy base. In the original arcade version it's South pole - Sunken town - Channel - Deep dark sea - Seabed ruins - Enemy base.

Someone must have thought the game needed to be re-balanced or something but still, it's an odd thing to do. I also recall the Psone version has 4 lives as default, one more than the arcade.

[Vurpa]

Have it on SAT (PAL). Graphics were amazing but always thought the "shallow" stages where you could only move on 1/6th of the screen were annoying yet those were where the graphics shined. Can't agree with it being hard though .

Does this speedupcode exist in the SAT-version as well?

[pcb_revival]

So is Sqoon (nes) an official forefather to In The Hunt.

[Op Intensify]

That's uncertain, but Sub Rebellion/U: Underwater Unit is its official sequel.

[Moniker]

Just fired this up in mame. Great fun; I may hunt down the psx version myself for psp. Irem kicks/ed so much ass.

[Nasirosuchus]

I don't consider it a shmup; just a run 'n gunner, sans the running.

Either way, it's a wonderful lil, short game...I think it's actually pretty rare to find out in the wild, I was incredibly lucky to find a copy of it in my area.

Metal Slug was Nazca's last game; Nazca developed MS1, but SNK took over Nazca. It's confusing.

The core game play is no different than any other shmup, so it fits in the same category. As far as what someone else said about the screen not scrolling, the screen doesn't have to scroll for the game to be a shmup. The screen doesn't scroll in Galaga or Space invaders or Gyruss, either.

Anyway, I've been working towards a 1CC in this game for the last two months. I can get to the last boss without dying, but one stupid mistake always kills me. That's pretty common with horizontals, though. You have to be nearly perfect from beginning to the end. If you die past a certain point or in the wrong place, you may as well reset the game.