Trigon

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Ed Oscuro
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Trigon

Post by Ed Oscuro »

A fun experiment:

1.) Collect V powerup
2.) Watch the first boss time out on you

Bag 'o random complaints from me:

* Ridiculous hitbox/bullet pattern designs. You're forced to keep moving. Obviously they wanted the gameplay to be different from Flying Shark, but dang.
* Vulcan doesn't seem to power up. Both main weapons have pretty terrible shot limitations (only three shots onscreen for the main weapon, argh).
* Pretty "laser" (bomb) types are not at all flexible to use as they should be. Flexibility in what bomb type you pick up (i.e. have next) makes bomb storing complicated at times.
* Hard to see bullets over certain backgrounds (especially the waterfall)
* Too many damn popcorn enemies and generally boring level design.
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Post by admith »

100% agree, and it's a shame because for some reason, I still love this game. Maybe is because I used to play it in the arcade, and it reminds me those golden years... :P
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DEL
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Post by DEL »

I used to feel the same way about it, but then I spent a couple of days on my PCB last year and 1 credited to ST8 and began to like it.

No-one has yet answered my question; "How the hell do you get through ST9?" Though......
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Post by Ed Oscuro »

What I don't get is the second boss.

Just the boss pattern would keep me busy, but then there are two lines of tanks on the sides of the screen. I've tried dodging in and out of the main fire to take out one line of tanks, but I can't get back to the center of the screen.

I also have tried staying in the very center and moving up and down to miss the tank fire, but I don't think there's enough room to dodge all their shots.

So basically I always have to waste a laser (bomb) or two on this boss.

hate hate hate

Maybe we should start a hiscore thread and if people start playing it they'll give answers and stuff.
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Post by P_HAT »

Ed Oscuro wrote:What I don't get is the second boss.

Just the boss pattern would keep me busy, but then there are two lines of tanks on the sides of the screen. I've tried dodging in and out of the main fire to take out one line of tanks, but I can't get back to the center of the screen.

I also have tried staying in the very center and moving up and down to miss the tank fire, but I don't think there's enough room to dodge all their shots.

So basically I always have to waste a laser (bomb) or two on this boss.

hate hate hate

Maybe we should start a hiscore thread and if people start playing it they'll give answers and stuff.
Shoe good in dis gaem.
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Re: Trigon

Post by Op Intensify »

Necrobump.

I really like this game. It doesn't have any spectacular moments that really stick in your mind, but it keeps a very consistent level of quality. There aren't any overly cheap shots, it always feels like I died by my own fault. There is a nice balance between the two bomb types, with the Lightning Sword providing instantaneous complete defense, and the Dragon Laser being riskier but more powerful. I think this would have been a great candidate for a SNES release, or an arcade-perfect PS1/Saturn version bundled with something else, as was mentioned. It would probably be fondly remembered by many if that was the case.

In response to Ed's complaints from over three years ago:
You're forced to keep moving.
What's wrong with that?
Vulcan doesn't seem to power up.
It does, but not very much. The Vulcan is weaker overall, so its only advantage is having built-in autofire. You're much better off using custom autofire with the spread shot.
Pretty "laser" (bomb) types are not at all flexible to use as they should be. Flexibility in what bomb type you pick up (i.e. have next) makes bomb storing complicated at times.
You have to plan ahead for the stage, so?
Hard to see bullets over certain backgrounds (especially the waterfall)
Never had this problem.
Too many damn popcorn enemies
Would you prefer Euroshmup design, with massive lifebars on every little peashooter plane?
generally boring level design.
Like I said, it's light on spectacle but nothing about it is broken, stupid, or cheap.

I should also mention that Kokoro Belmont in Otomedius Excellent flies the Trigon ship. It has the Lightning Sword and the same rotating option pod from the Japanese version. She's probably the most difficult to control character because of that pod, which no longer auto-tracks enemies, but the Lightning Sword will tear through bosses and takes little time to charge.
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Re: Trigon

Post by Ed Oscuro »

Heyo, old thread! Heh, those are all pretty good responses to what I wrote.

I'll take another shot at this - I noticed some screenshots of the game mixed in with another PCB being sold on eBay, and it took me a while to recognize that almost-Toaplan style. Actually, I did muck around with it for a few minutes, but didn't go far enough to try the second boss again.

My only real persistent complaint would likely be about that boss. Is it possible to get past the second boss without wasting a bomb? Let's see!

I feel somewhat ashamed, because like Namco, Konami seems to only get respect for their main series, yet people like me who like the more Toaplan-ish style aren't giving credit to the (admittedly few) shooting games wildly outside those companies' traditional styles. (It's not Axelay, either, which is another added bonus.) Of course, Flak Attack / MX displeases me greatly, and I still think that limiting the onscreen shot count to only three is very stingy, at least in theory.

Having played Flying Shark recently, not to mention a fair amount of Shienryu / Sengeki Striker, the three shots aren't too bad (and, oddly, the S pickup seems to give you more shots; I counted five onscreen, but after the first boss it's back to three, just staying wider - it's strange if it's artificially limited, stranger if it's reverting to a lower limit; not sure what's going on), and even with the MAME Plus default autofire rate, you don't spend a lot of time dry firing the gun, even when you go down the screen. The ship moves quickly, too, which takes care of my biggest beef with Flying Shark (you better know which way you're going before you put the credit in). Seems quite promising now. Decent enough music and the visuals are a nice riff on the Toaplan style, rendered with superior Konami hardware.

Strange they wouldn't make the bonus 1000 point formations yellow, though, but maybe they didn't want to make their own doujin homage to Flying Shark too obvious. Another pain-in-the-ass Flying Shark element, the shy powerup icon, is here, and it cycles between two types, just like the bombs, for extra enjoyment. Unfortunately it seems to travel in a small circle and may spend much of its lifetime offscreen, so grabbing them is risky at times. So that could be a positive from the standpoint of balancing gameplay. On the other hand, I am still finding stage 1 pretty boring, although probably more or less equivalent to Flying Shark. Lots of teases from scaled bombers and carrier planes flying past you at this point in the game.

The popcorn are more aggressive than Flying Shark; lots of single aimed shots to keep you jumping. Ditto for the first boss, it has a weak standard pattern fleshed out with popcorn as well as a central homing shot. I guess I see what I meant by the "keeps you moving" criticism; it doesn't seem a lot like the traditional Toaplan shmup. It's kind of tiring to dodge the same pattern repeatedly without variation, I'll say that. That is probably what I meant. Add in a not-quite right hitbox for bonus aggravation. Also, boss checkpoints in Trigon, lol, definitely Toaplanish. Will have to see if they're present in the US and World releases.

Check out the shape of the building behind you at the very beginning of the game! :mrgreen:

Edit: Okay, so all I can accuse the second boss of doing is of using that tendency of some older shooters with lower bullet counts to make patterns that look like you can squeeze through them that you really can't. This boss has a variable enough pattern that it's a bit hard to predict - it's more than simple dodging, so shame on me for thinking I could play it stupidly and win. But a dragon laser definitely helps here. Not sure I need to be all that concerned about using a bomb or two because I got a bunch of them in the stage. Wouldn't be surprised if the game gets stingy with them later on (or maybe stops awarding them in a loop, like Toaplan...) but right now that looks like the expedient solution to the problem. I can't say I dig the way the bosses work, but the second stage is starting to get fun. Overall impression of the game - a bit of the same feeling as before (now backed up with Carefully Gathered Empirical Observations), a healthy dose of respect for the sheer variety of the stuff in the game (two shot types, two bomb types, and the Trigon module on top of it), but disdain for trading off Flying Shark's nicer hitbox for the ability to get out of the way of bullets. Now you get chased all over the place (even compared to Flying Shark) but the hitbox and constricted environments let me down repeatedly. Check out that stage three miniboss fight, where a bullet sponge with its own nasty bullet barf attack gets help from four bits of flying junk, and the sponge's bullets appear to pass behind them, making things even more confusing.

The bomb stock (stack?) is LIFO, i.e. the last one you picked up is the first one you'll drop. So actually planning bomb use is not at all impossible. I don't recall how Gemini Wing works, but it has a similar issue (much more complicated in that game by too many types of bomb, though).
Last edited by Ed Oscuro on Mon Jul 09, 2012 3:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Trigon

Post by Op Intensify »

My only real persistent complaint would likely be about that boss. Is it possible to get past the second boss without wasting a bomb? Let's see!
It's hard but doable. I've done it more than once. It really helps to have a powered up spread shot with autofire.

I'll agree that Stage 1 is boring, but come on, there aren't many retro shmups where this isn't the case. At least it has a decent boss and that weird bonus enemy that disappears almost right away.

And yeah, you can't play this like a Cave game. Your hitbox is huge and must be taken into account when trying to dodge boss patterns. The game's generous with handing out bombs, almost overly so, and skilled use of them will negate some of the difficulty.
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Re: Trigon

Post by Ed Oscuro »

It can't be played like Cave (I don't play Cave anyway, Raizing / Psikyo / Toaplan and plenty of even more marginalized stuff, like NMK) but it also can't be played like a Toaplan game. I think that there is unquestionably something suspect about the hitboxes and patterns. I can't really bash a game this old for not having lots of unique patterns but the patterns here are definitely easily misinterpreted, which I don't think is usually a positive for a shooting game.
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Re: Trigon

Post by Op Intensify »

I think the patterns are fine. If you want to play a vert shmup from the same era with actual broken patterns, try Thunder Dragon 1. What seems to be the problem with Trigon is that the hitboxes on certain bullet types are larger than they appear to be. It's definitely a negative but it's not too hard to adjust to.

When I started playing the game, the first boss would walk all over me because I misjudged how to dodge those blue twin lasers. But after some practice I can best him every time. It's got a learning curve like anything else that's good.

It does seem that they expected you to exploit your numerous bombs quite often, though, which isn't a decision I'd agree with.
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Re: Trigon

Post by Op Intensify »

If you can get a second player, this game becomes hugely easier. There's three types of 2-player Trigon pods. The green one that fires a continuous laser (shown in the attract mode demo) will kick the stuffing out of big targets as long as you can coordinate its aiming, and can sweep the screen just fine. They also create a damaging chain between the two ships. Unlike the 1P Trigon pod, you can get them in the first stage!

I like how the two player's ships look entirely different, a nice feature to prevent confusion that more retro shmups should have used.
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Re: Trigon

Post by Emuser »

Having cleared this, I really do have to say that there are only a few truly impossible checkpoints to recover from, most notably the stage 6 midboss if you are ever careless enough to let yourself get stuck there.

My only gripe with this game nowadays is the fact that the aspect ratio is improper in mame, leading to having to "press" the left or right edge of the screen to see the rest of the stage properly. There is also some space on the top and the bottom that is cut off for example the konami building on a pcb is a bit cutoff on the bottom so you don't see the 4th set of ventilator fans on the bottom of the building. This is also why you are able to hit the pods at the waterfall in stage 2 a little before you would see them in mame. I really do hope that there would be a way to fix this issue, as it essentially feels like you're playing with a slightly zoomed in scope of vision in mame. I was spoiled by the PCB a while back after having played it on mame for some time and I haven't been able to enjoy it on mame since.

Other than being stuck on the 1-6 midboss checkpoint, stage 2-5 is also the hardest thing in the game, if you die you lose.
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Re: Trigon

Post by Emuser »

Necrobump, I miraculously found a build of mame last night that has save state support for Trigon and works like a dream. I've seriously improved what feels like ten-fold already having been able to play through chunks of any stage I want to.

I bump this up though because the WR score is listed in the STG Hall of Records here on the forum at 2,980,200 and I just discovered that it is surprisingly easy to double ko on the final boss via gokujou parodius to net ~500K extra from final checkpoint milking assuming you can no miss to that point in 2-9. Playing with max rank/no rank control nets what feels like an extra 50K per loop

The best score I've been able to conjour after this is 2,611,930 but it still falls short by 370K of the world record and at this point I don't know where these last mystery points come from. My only guess is somehow manipulating the ever-elusive 1up ships to appear:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=p ... nE0#t=733s

I don't expect anyone on here to know much more about Trigon than I do, but if I can figure out where these mystery points come from I am dead serious in considering challenging the WR score. What I know for higher scoring is:

1. Fully power up spread the whole game
2. No rank control, always maximum rank
3. Don't die, don't miss the point pickups(minus 2-9 final checkpoint)
4. Obviously destroy everything possible, no reason not to plan bombs.
5. Get lucky with 1up ships? Manipulation? Luck based WR score?
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Re: Trigon

Post by Ed Oscuro »

A few questions - Parodius? Also, does this latest version of the game fix the view area problem you described in your last post?

Thanks for the impressions, it's good to see the game has its defenders. I'll give it another shot sometime, but it sounds like MAME might be a bit of the problem.

And the outta left field "Trigon what?" - Lightning Fighters is just missing the orbiting weapon, right? Also, please join in with me at a hearty LOL @ HG101, saying "largely generic...graphically it feels like a rip-off of Seibu Kaihatsu's Raiden" when both games were released in 1990, Trigon just the month after! :roll: Clearly it's Toaplan-influenced. It's a shame Konami didn't stick with games of this type, but I still feel it has some of the typical playability / design issues in your typical Gradius Heritage Company developed shooter. Still dreading the bullet patterns.
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Re: Trigon

Post by NTSC-J »

ResumeDPosition wrote:Necrobump, I miraculously found a build of mame last night that has save state support for Trigon and works like a dream. I've seriously improved what feels like ten-fold already having been able to play through chunks of any stage I want to.

I bump this up though because the WR score is listed in the STG Hall of Records here on the forum at 2,980,200 and I just discovered that it is surprisingly easy to double ko on the final boss via gokujou parodius to net ~500K extra from final checkpoint milking assuming you can no miss to that point in 2-9. Playing with max rank/no rank control nets what feels like an extra 50K per loop

The best score I've been able to conjour after this is 2,611,930 but it still falls short by 370K of the world record and at this point I don't know where these last mystery points come from. My only guess is somehow manipulating the ever-elusive 1up ships to appear:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=p ... nE0#t=733s

I don't expect anyone on here to know much more about Trigon than I do, but if I can figure out where these mystery points come from I am dead serious in considering challenging the WR score. What I know for higher scoring is:

1. Fully power up spread the whole game
2. No rank control, always maximum rank
3. Don't die, don't miss the point pickups(minus 2-9 final checkpoint)
4. Obviously destroy everything possible, no reason not to plan bombs.
5. Get lucky with 1up ships? Manipulation? Luck based WR score?
I looked around google for a little while but couldn't find any Japanese sites with strategies that would help you at that level of play. I don't know if you've tried using the 2P ship, but it appears to have a number of differences from 1P and might be worth experimenting with.

Regarding the 1UPs, there seems to be some debate as to what triggers them. Most seem to think they only come out when you're on your last life and that they're random at that point.

This won't help you, but it sounds like there's a bug where if you wait for the stage 8 demo to play then insert a credit, you'll start from stage 9.
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Re: Trigon

Post by XoPachi »

I just like the Yugioh cards of Trigon and Delta Tri. Game didn't interest me.
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Re: Trigon

Post by Emuser »

Ed Oscuro wrote:A few questions - Parodius? Also, does this latest version of the game fix the view area problem you described in your last post?

Thanks for the impressions, it's good to see the game has its defenders. I'll give it another shot sometime, but it sounds like MAME might be a bit of the problem.

And the outta left field "Trigon what?" - Lightning Fighters is just missing the orbiting weapon, right? Also, please join in with me at a hearty LOL @ HG101, saying "largely generic...graphically it feels like a rip-off of Seibu Kaihatsu's Raiden" when both games were released in 1990, Trigon just the month after! :roll: Clearly it's Toaplan-influenced. It's a shame Konami didn't stick with games of this type, but I still feel it has some of the typical playability / design issues in your typical Gradius Heritage Company developed shooter. Still dreading the bullet patterns.
via Parodius, as in suiciding right when you kill the final boss to go back to a checkpoint and repeat the process to get more points.

I've personally held the belief that Trigon looks better graphically than Raiden but Raiden is probably the better game overall.

Personal best now is 2,677,800 and am out of ideas once again how to boost my score.

NTSC-J, I don't think there is a way to play as 2p when playing Trigon by yourself.
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Re: Trigon

Post by Nifty »

I've been wondering where all that extra score comes from too. I did find that it's possible to 'die' without losing a life by getting hit just as a boss explodes, depending on how long the stage's cleared message takes to come up (sometimes the animation is too long). It still resets power, so it's not good for much more than a free rank drop. Unfortunately (or maybe not), it doesn't look like it's possible to go back a checkpoint and keep a life, which takes lossless milking off the table. It's definitely a bit of a mystery, particularly as the bosses time out so quickly that they can't really be milked either.
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Re: Trigon

Post by Ed Oscuro »

ResumeDPosition wrote:I've personally held the belief that Trigon looks better graphically than Raiden but Raiden is probably the better game overall.
Agreed with this. I don't like Raiden all that much, but it is still competent at least. The Konami logo building at the beginning of Trigon, on the other hand, is one of my favorite things in a game ever.

Had a look at MAME...still have the bottom of the building cut off.

Edit: I decided to make the jump and open a thread in High Scores for this game!
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Re: Trigon

Post by Emuser »

:O !

I just figured out some of the mystery score: the start of stage 8, the 8 gray destroyable containers have a trick to them that I didn't pick up on until moments ago. Serious planning ahead in bomb choice will net you some unexpected points.
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Re: Trigon

Post by Ed Oscuro »

173,980, lol. Wasted a dragon laser on the second boss because I had him flashing after the first one before he even disappeared under the bridge (and this after a few deaths so I was only at the first level of S power, or one step above peashooter). I triggered the second one the moment I had it but he was already set to explode.

Is anybody using the V powerup?
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Re: Trigon

Post by Volteccer_Jack »

Ed Oscuro wrote:Is anybody using the V powerup?
With autofire, the first boss doesn't time out. :P

Still don't see any reason for a sane person to use it, but I also don't know what stage 3 looks like yet, so I'm not the guy to ask.
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Re: Trigon

Post by Ed Oscuro »

Yeah, you're right, the power level difference is pretty insane. I had been using S with autofire rate 6, but 3 (MAME default) is much better and doesn't leave big gaps on the screen.

Even better yet, DoubleThink mentioned a trick for more shots onscreen:
DoubleThink wrote:Found another trick too. Picking up the S weapon will increase the number of shots allowed on screen, but only as long as the fire button remains held down (visible here, in fact). Letting off the fire will set it back to 3. Moreover, the limit boost changes based on the current power level. Including the base level (counted as level zero), there are five levels of power, and the shot limit changes in a pattern of 3-4-!6!-4-3, giving a huge power/reliability boost to level three and especially level two compared to max power.
I can't fathom why, from a game design perspective, this would have been seen as a good idea - but there you go. Kind of like Raiden DX's "fighting spirit" bonus.

Go For the Gold, Trigon Games!

Man, I might put that in the score thread... :mrgreen:
Last edited by Ed Oscuro on Thu Dec 27, 2012 6:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Trigon

Post by Nifty »

The V weapon is definitely safer than S at lowest power, which may be helpful if you die in a tricky spot and want some consistency in a hurry. Its shot limit means the autofire can be cranked higher without losing that consistency too, if you're so inclined. At full bore it's quite powerful.
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Re: Trigon

Post by professor ganson »

Strange. Just earlier today I was thinking about this game and then I find this thread. Haven't pulled out the PCB in quite a while, and I don't really have anything interesting to add. The game seems decidedly lacking in various ways and yet I get hooked (at least for a short while) every time I play it.
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