[PCE] Lucretia: Demon Princess

[CIT]

Trailer for upcoming PC-Engine CD-Rom shooter released:

http://www.retrocollect.com/News/demo-r ... ncess.html

Looks like it still needs some work though...

[PC Engine Fan X!]

I see that in the readme file, Lucretia's a Super CD-Rom2 shmup demo...so it'll boot up just on a Turbo Duo, PCE Duo, Duo-R or the Duo-RX variant consoles. Too bad the PCE shmup of Xymati wasn't finished...that, I would've liked to give a spin to see how it plays.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Finally burned Lucretia as a CD-R and finally checked it out on a PCE Duo-RX setup. Comprises of a single stage demo complete with an end-stage boss. Has the usual opening intro with all four witches to choose from when starting a game. There aren't any scores shown whatsoever but it should be implemented for that unmistakable arcade feel/vibe -- just doesn't gel well without a scoring system in place (or was that the original intent from the start of this Lucretia shmup project not to have one? -- it seems to be that way). When fighting the stage 1 boss, there's a safe spot to stay in without incurring any losses to your heart icons (which is your indicator of how much health you have left...when all three hearts are gone, it's truly game over) whatsoever and dishing out major damage easily.

Could be construed as a simple Cotton or Magical Chase wanna-be except it's an amateurish one at best. Imo, really needs more frames of animation with the small fry enemies and for the end-stage boss as well. As for the parallax scrolling, it has four layers scrolling at different speeds indeed (some the scrolling background parallax layers look like they were borrowed from the classic PCE Lords of Thunder shmup easily). I'd imagine with a good 2D sprite artist, it could be a better shmup title to look forward to (and instead of using recycled background scenery from other PCE shmup titles, why not create some eye-catchy original background scenery instead?).

As a bonus, you can listen to the cool BGMs under the "Audtion" menu selection by placing the arrow icon and pressing the I button. Thirteen different BGMs are available.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Ed Oscuro]

Facing left when you put in a left command...and with the same wind-swept animation as before...o-k

Unless it's done Forgotten Worlds/Ark Area-style, I think they just goofed.

[null1024]

I saw the player move back without facing the other way, so it looks like some kind of toggle or maybe you hold down a button to stop from turning.

I haven't given this a spin yet, I'll check it out tomorrow.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

After giving the PCE Lucretia demo a more in-depth play analysis to see what it has to offer in terms of overall gameplay and game mechanics, it has the following features:

1.) Two player co-op with optional multi-tap and 2nd PCE controller setup (gives the PCE Aeroblasters shmup title a run for it's money with the very little utilized 2-player co-op functionality from the get-go)

2.) By pressing pause during gameplay, brings up a sub-menu to change the default button scheme to your liking with the following three button scheme options --

a.) Button II fires level 1 shot and pressing Left on the d-pad, you fire in the opposite direction

b.) Button II fires level shot with Button I changes the direction that your character is facing

c.) Button II fires backwards while Button I fires forward direction (ala the classic Sidearms or Deathsmiles firing button scheme)

d.) The CPU remembers which button scheme was last used if starting a new gaming session (so no worries in that department of the button scheme going back to default setting -- which is a good thing imo)

3.) The Select button fires the special weapon (special weapon item count/status is shown below your heart life gauge).

4.) Some witch characters have a tad bit faster overall speed in regards to basic directional movement.

5.) It's possible to play with both 1P & 2P characters using a single PCE D-pad if so desired (something quite novel for a PCE shmup title as I haven't seen this type of gameplay possible with the commercially released PCE shmup titles released in years past).

Note: will give Lucretia a spin with both an NEC Arcade Pad 6, NEC Avenue Pad 6 and PCE Blaster pad with 3-button scheme to see if three button support is possible from the get-go (with using button III in lieu of the Select button to activate the special weapon shot). You might recall with Capcom's Super CD-Rom2 title of Forgotten Worlds with it's 3-button controller, the NEC Avenue Pad 3 (or using the Select button to rotate your Satellite weapon with the traditional PCE 2-button endowed controller setup as a alternate method of playing it -- this was true with the TTI version of FW released in the USA indeed).

Edit: Upon using a 6-button scheme with an Arcade Pad 6 setup switched to 6-button mode, simply pressing button III does absolutely nothing -- so Lucretia doesn't have 3-button support from the get-go. (There's always time to properly add in 3-button support though just for fun/kicks {without resorting to using the Select button} to enhance gameplay.)

My two cents -- Sorely lacks any scoring, a big "no-no" in the shmup genre. Please add obligatory scoring to give playing it something to strive for + high score list screen + high score initials entry and high score/high score initials saving functionality to the Duo's Backup RAM would be a huge plus in my book. Is it that hard to implement such scoring on a PCE shmup these days? Surely not...

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Eponasoft]

Thanks for the honest critique, PC Engine Fan X!

A few things...

The backgrounds were not lifted from existing PC Engine games. The graphics for the first stage are temporary, but are actually from another production of ours, Monolith.

Scoring isn't implemented yet but it's on the to do list.

Xymati is still in the works but there is nothing new to report lately.

Good idea on the three-button support... I'll put that in the work list.