Bullet Heaven HD

[chempop]

Fantastic! I've seen a good number of these, bout time they get some exposure here.

[Acid_Rain]

Thanks for the summary and keep up the good work!

[blackoak]

I watched a bunch of these today and really enjoyed them! Any plans to do more arcade titles in the future?

[blackoak]

Oh, so you don't want to use MAME for your reviews? I can see it being distorting for certain titles (input lag etc) but there should be a lot which are mostly indistinguishable from the pcbs. But I actually have 19XX and Viper Phase 1, so if you ever want to borrow them for review, send me a PM.

[Adigun A. Polack]

Serraxor, I *must* honestly say that your entire “Bullet Heaven” series has blossomed and blossomed successfully over the years to become the very, VERY BEST premier, dedicated original shmup-review program that I have ever seen in all my life, as you are most undeniably point-blank honest and true about a lot of the shmups (and even plenty of Japan-only titles, by the way!) while the show itself is so resplendently married to such TOP-notch production values that you put out and improving and improving for each new episode. As such on all of that, I truly applaud you and another reviewer Daeruna for actually producing such a spectacular series that I would just love to look back on and watch over and over, as your show is quite easily a big, flat-out recommendation indeed for all us hardcore-shmuppers, as well as for those of you first-timers who want to get your feet wet and learn more about how the shmup genre became the ever-rich, fantastic powerhouse where the whole entire gaming history is concerned, as well also as everywhere in-between. !!

And oh, I love your voice and you have grown to be QUITE an amazing person as most handsomely as ever in our entire awesome-sauce Shmups community, let’s get that right; a massive thumbs up from me, personally!!! (^_~)v !!!

Keep up the most spectacular job that you and Daeruna are doing, my truly fantastic man; you have made a serious, big-time fan out of me in regards to your “Bullet Heaven” series of programs since shmups are my personal specialty at heart, no less!!! !!



P.S. Thank you ever so grandly very much for creating this masterfully amazing thread that is well-truly a most precious valuable asset to our community, too... in fact, it is so rather damn phenomenally good, that I hope the mods can look at this and actually paste this as a “Sticky” thread for us to look upon in terms of such valuable shmup-based resources like this one. It is just THAT excellent indeed.

[NeoStrayCat]

Oh, so you don't want to use MAME for your reviews?

I think I read a comment from one of his vids stating no emulation, and it has to be from his personal library of shmup titles that he has currently. So yeah, a certain number of reviews won't happen unless he has a PCB (for certain titles that don't have console ports/etc) or either in cart/disk/etc form.

[scrilla4rella]

It's great to have this thread here. I second the motion for having this be made a sticky.
-
Also, someone needs to get Serr access to a copy of Crimson Clover.

[NeoStrayCat]

Yes..."Ser", lol. I will most definitely be pleased! :3

Now the wait begins...

[g_block]

I can understand the no-emulation thing, but would you be opposed to reproductions? You could do Recca Summer Carnival that way

[g_block]

Head over to nintendoage.com, there are several repro makers who do foreign release/translation NES games for $30 or less.

Also is Galaga 90 (or 88 for the arcade version) on the horizon for an episode? It's on the Wii VC

[broken harbour]

By the way... your show rocks. I love it! Keep up the good work.

[DMC]

Any chance you could make it a downloadable mp3 or avi file (perhaps through itunes?) in the future? I'd be interested in listening to them while commuting/walking.

[DMC]

Any chance you could make it a downloadable mp3 or avi file (perhaps through itunes?) in the future? I'd be interested in listening to them while commuting/walking.

Unfortunately, an AVI of these episodes would take up way too much space. But, the idea of an audio version might work. I'll have to look into the logisitics of that. If it happened would be distributed via Press Pause Radio on iTunes.

I would appreciate such audio version. Please look into that if you have time. Thanks!

[HydrogLox]

Any chance you could make it a downloadable mp3 or avi file (perhaps through itunes?) in the future? I'd be interested in listening to them while commuting/walking.

Googled "rip youtube mp3" - top two hits:

http://www.youtube-mp3.org/
http://www.listentoyoutube.com/

youtube-mp3 generated a 12MB mp3 file from Espgaluda II Black Label REVIEW - Bullet Heaven HD, Episode 80.

Programs like Internet Download Manager have browser integrated download menus for videos embedded into web pages. In the case of episode 80 it offers 3GP, FLV, and MP4 as download options. The 360p MP4 is 72MB while the 720p MP4 is 298MB.

[NeoStrayCat]

Don't worry Ser, things happen, but though subtle differences.

[NeoStrayCat]

A shame, yeah, we all know that YT's an ass for copyright claims and sutff, but at least I already saw a litte glimpse of ep. 32 before "biting the bullet", so yeah...>_>

[chempop]

Just checked out your DDP:R and SDOJ reviews. Pretty good overall though I'm going to have to disagree about DDP:R not being a beginner friendly game. I find it THE easiest and most beginner friendly cave title due to autobombs and hyper-cancelling. Also, for both reviews, watching all that low level novice play kinda makes the games seem boring. Rambling on and on about a score system only goes so far... until it likely has a negative effect for the viewers, for me anyway.

Also, you prefer Cute over Cave? Does one or two decent games really overshadow more than 20 years of the most influential and popular danmaku titles for you?

Regardless, still some of the best reviews out there!

[chempop]

Remember that these reviews aren't meant for the hardest-core.

I suppose it isn't important, just kinda strange that while you are talking about extremely heavy difficulty I'm watching 4 slow bullets on the screen.

Rambling on and on about a score system only goes so far

This is kind of hilarious, since it was this very forum that demanded the hell out of scoring-focused reviews. I'll tone it down next time.

For the DDP:R review I guess it's just the overall back and forth between talking about arrange-A&B, arcade, novice, etc.. stars, multipliers, grey experience cubes... Maybe if you tried taking a look at each mode one at a time it would be more coherent.

Also, you prefer QUTE over Cave? Does one or two decent games really overshadow more than 20 years of the most influential and popular danmaku titles for you?

Fixed

[TrevHead (TVR)]

Sweet now I can understand why so many ppl don't like this game.

[broken harbour]

More garbage from Bandai, this time for imagery in the episode 76 review of Xevious. It's like they have a beef with me for deleting and reworking episode 32. If my dispute fails, I'll likely be forced to delete episodes 61, 65, 76 and 32 (again) just to get them off my back.

As a result of this crap, I will no longer be doing reviews for Namco or Bandai games.

EDIT: Or will I?

So they're pissed off you review their games?

They'd better start suing IGN and all the other outlets that review Namco games....

[HydrogLox]

• 2009-May-12 Raiden Fighters Aces Xbox 360 releases in North America for $19.99.
• 2009-Oct-06 First Bullet Heaven review.
• 2010-Apr-01 First Xbox 360 (XBLA) review on Bullet Heaven.
• 2010-Jul-10 Single Pixel Hitbox Challenge - Raiden Fighters Jet Score Attack.
• 2013-Aug-31 Commentary for STG Weekly #34: Raiden Fighters Jet.
• 2013-Sep-01 Last Season 4 Bullet Heaven review (episode 84).

OK, I've got to ask. Why no Xbox 360 "Raiden Fighters Aces" review so far ... (in 4 years/84 episodes)?


(It has already been pulled from the Japanese and Asian Marketplace and there is no telling how much longer it will last on the North American Marketplace).

[NeoStrayCat]

I see, well, thanks for giving this season a good run, and wait for more in the next season this fall, so yeah! :3

[HydrogLox]

However, you may have noticed a subtle shift in the presentation of the episode with Shooting Love 10th. This was a test bed for a multi game compilation episode, so expect a Raiden Fighters Aces review very early in Season 5... likely for the first or second episode.

That is great to hear - even more reasons to be looking forward to Season 5! And take your time - with your past output you have set a pretty high bar, would be a shame if you'd "burn out" because of arbitrary "targets" and deadlines.

Thank You for all your effort!

[NeoStrayCat]

Nice...But when's your Spent Ammo Podcast coming? It says this month (Sep.), I might guess it might make release soon, or it might be delayed? Also, would be nice if the new season of BH would come out early, but yeah, I know, too much work to do, so yeah, I can wait. :3

[NeoStrayCat]

Ser, as soon as you read this, or whenever you can, you may want to update your 1st post for "Season 5/V" and "Spent Ammo" and stuff once its ready.

[Bonus!]

I'm looking forward to it, Seraxxor, even thought I don't always agree with your opinions, especially your pretty harsh review of SDOJ. It's the only game I've been playing for about a month now.

I just watched the intro for season 5. There was one game in the intro video that caught my attention:


Would you mind telling me the name and platform of this game? I'd guess it's a Cotton game on PCE.

Thanks!

[dunpeal2064]

That is Magical Chase, it is indeed on the PcEngine (And was released stateside, but that is one pricey HuCard!)

[Bonus!]

Thanks for the info! I just checked it out on YouTube. It looks really nice. I was quite shocked when I read about the price tag. $1.5k to $2k wasn't quite what I was expecting when you wrote it was one pricey HU card. That's comparable to some of the rarer Neogeo carts.

[Bonus!]

By the way, the review for SDOJ wasn't that harsh... it still got a 7/10, which is respectable... it just wasn't as good as Cave's other efforts. Check out Rock-On or D-Force for a really harsh review

For how long have you played SDOJ? When I got it, it took me a few credits to get used to it, but I've grown really fond of it. There are so many fabulous details, like a very brief nod to Espgaluda in stage 2 (BGM and pattern on the ground, after the mid boss), or some very Ketsui-esque motifs in the music, and also some of the bullet patterns. The gameplay is really tight, too.

I've now 1CC'ed it a handful of times on Novice Laster, which I found immensely gratifying. I also spent some time in practice mode fighting Hibachi in Novice mode, and she's got some pretty tough bullet patterns. I haven't yet beaten her on one credit, but I've been very close (literally hitting her with the laser for about a second away). Avoiding those incredibly fast paced bullets, or navigating through the randomly moving ones is just a blast. SDOJ allowed me, as a relative newbie, to get to grips with STGs, and I'm immensely grateful to Cave for carving a path for non-expert players to gradually improve and working their way up (haven't 1 CC'ed Novice Shot yet, but made it to the boss already). I think I'll be playing this game for a very long time. Actually, looking at my schedule, I realize that I haven't played any other game on my X360 for about six weeks now. I've only scratched the surface of SDOJ, but I'd rate it a 10/10.

[Bonus!]

Which modes did you 1CC, if I may ask?

Of course, personal tastes are different, but to me both Ketsui and SDOJ really stand out in Cave's catalogue. I got Futari sitting on my shelf, too, but I just can't get myself to remove the SDOJ disc from my X360.