MadSteelDarkness wrote:Wow, I'd never gotten to play Dragon Blaze properly before, and I'm completely blown away.
Same here. Just got it. This was my most wanted port of anything ever, and I was worried Taito would mess it up in some way, but I'm 100% satisfied. Nice menus/presentation, hardly any loading, nice practice mode, playable yoko mode and tate. Excellent. I think when all's said and done here this could overtake Gunbird 2. MAME at 5 frames per second and no sound did not do it justice.
This release gets my seal of approval too they really did a great job, almost no loading at all, not even when changing between the games. Makes me wish Atlus would have put some more effort into the Gunbird ports (lots of annoying loading)
wow..finally got it..NO THANKS,NSCX..stupid Hori preorder fuck up..and all i gotta say is wow...Sol Divide is a nice add on for Dragon Blaze..Dragon blaze is fan fucking tastic..i almost beat 1-5...im credit feeding this mofo..everything is great about the ps2 port of dragon blaze and sol divide looks zoomed up because i dont remeber my guy being so huge on mame..anyways..psikyo 3 is the best compilation of the 3..2 being just as good but the sengoku blade port is inferior to the saturn port and sengoku ace is definetely Ace!
The cave whore count in this thread is unbelievable!!!
I like Dragon Blaze, but man I just played Sol Divide for the first time a few minutes ago...
Psikyo really didn't have games in mind when they developed this one. Maybe they were busy planning a BBQ or something. Or, you know those times when you are almost late to work and due to rushing you forget to put on deodorant and then kinda' can't wait to get home so you can put some on? Damn I pray this was just the worst kind of rush job. Seriously, I think Hot Gimmick is a better shooter than Sol Divide.
I think Sol Divide has the largest staff of any Psikyo shooter too. It would be so much better if enemies didn't take so much close range hitting to kill, hitboxes were smaller and patterns more elaborate. Hey, like a regular Psikyo shooter! I also didn't need a dozen magic spells.
Anyone else playing Dragon Blaze these days? I'm starting to feel more comfortable with it. I'm pretty reliably getting to level 3, but I haven't yet put in the time needed for me to get to level 4 on one credit. My main problem is the Goblin Desert level. This seems to be the analogue of the USA level in Gunbird 2, i.e. a real pain in the ass. The key is obviously to use Dragon Shot on these oversized ships with their multiple turrets, while dodging bullets from the remaining turrets. It's simply a matter of memorization, but I haven't put the time in.
Also, my score absolutely sucks, as I haven't started the process of triggering the flying golden idols. This is probably the next thing for me to work on. Am I right in supposing that you want to be aiming for around 100, 000 points per stage to get a decent score? It seems pretty similar to Gunbird 2 in this respect, but I'm usually getting around 80, 000 a level. Suck.
Anyway, this game is really amazing, and perhaps not quite as hard as I once thought. Now that I'm more familiar with Psikyo games, this one seems just one notch more difficult, not a lot harder as I originally feared. I'm definitely enjoying it more than Raiden III atm.
Oh yeah, and Ian rules as a character: so fast and fun!
professor ganson wrote:My main problem is the Goblin Desert level. This seems to be the analogue of the USA level in Gunbird 2, i.e. a real pain in the ass. The key is obviously to use Dragon Shot on these oversized ships with their multiple turrets, while dodging bullets from the remaining turrets. It's simply a matter of memorization, but I haven't put the time in.
On the Taito collection you can set the order of levels so you may want to try putting that one first.
NTSC-J wrote:
On the Taito collection you can set the order of levels so you may want to try putting that one first.
Excellent, I did not realize this. Would this order-setting be legit for high-score purposes?
I wouldn't consider it proper, no.
I think it should. Psikyo players almost always have an ideal stage order in mind and rather than waste time waiting for the proper sequence, set it to what you want. DB is still hard, the real meat is in the later levels anyways.
NTSC-J wrote:
I think it should. Psikyo players almost always have an ideal stage order in mind and rather than waste time waiting for the proper sequence, set it to what you want. DB is still hard, the real meat is in the later levels anyways.
Funny coming from someone who so abhors using savestates for practice since pcb players must do without .
In Batrider the stage edit is part of the original PCB, anyone can walk up and enter the code.
These recent Psikyo ports are the only versions to allow stage edit- PCB players don't have this advantage. Learning all the random stages so you can perform no matter what is part of the game.
If someone wanted to have a separate stage edit table fine, but it changes the game dramatically- greatly reducing what is required of you. The minor overall score benefit you might get isn't going to make a real difference for players here anyway. You'd be far better off learning all the idols, tech bonuses and getting more gold per stage.
It's really up to the highscore-thread's keeper to decide on the conditions the game is to be played at. Full defaults are just the norm, but there are several exceptions. Autofire is pretty much accepted into any table regardless whether the original arcade version has it. The Harmful Park -thread has tables for all difficulties. My own XII Stag -thread has tables for both stick-wigglers and single-button users. Even the great almighty Arcadia has separate tables for autofire and future carpal tunnel syndrome sufferers.
So I'd be interested to hear from the keeper of our Dragon Blaze HS thread keeper, supaT.
Oh look, I'm last on the table.
Having separate tables is, of course, the politically correct answer here. Everybody wins there. Except maybe the threadkeeper, since they have to do a bit of extra work.
No matter how good a game is, somebody will always hate it. No matter how bad a game is, somebody will always love it.
Ghegs wrote:Even the great almighty Arcadia has separate tables for autofire and future carpal tunnel syndrome sufferers.
Just to be clear, I believe that was only for Mushihime, since the external autofire hack presented radically different scoring opportunities. Otherwise, they consider external auto as normal/default.
Sorry to go somehwat off topic here, but does Taito have any plans on releasing more Psikyo Collections? I know the Gunbirds are out of the question thanks to Atlus, but we still have Zero Gunner, Space Bomber, Pilot Kids, Strikers 1945 III, Zero Gunner 2, and Gunbarich (was this released?) to look forward to, and maybe even the borderliner Gunspike (if Capcom allows it).
Also, does anyone own the rights to Raizing's IP's? I'd like to see some Raizing shmups make it to the PS2 in the future.
professor ganson: Why not just use the level options on the ps2 revision to practice the first 4 stages at 1-4 difficulty, that way anything less will be easier innit.
Im with you on the desert level though i find it the hardest out of the first 4 stages too.
A quick tip for the oversized ships. If you notice a dragon shot alone wont kill them. Using the dragon shot as soon as they appear is only gonna get you into trouble, what with trying to dodge extra spams and calling the dragon back, also if you kill them with the normal shot you're gonna miss out on all those gold coins from a non-dragon shot kill. What i find best is soften them up first with normal shot until they fire the first pattern (hang around in the centre then tap to either side) then dragon shot. Alot less messy and you get the gold coins.
Last edited by Ex_Mosquito on Tue Nov 08, 2005 12:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
Ghegs wrote:Even the great almighty Arcadia has separate tables for autofire and future carpal tunnel syndrome sufferers.
Just to be clear, I believe that was only for Mushihime, since the external autofire hack presented radically different scoring opportunities. Otherwise, they consider external auto as normal/default.
That still seems wrong to me. The Raiden games and Viper Phase One bosses are so much easier with rapid fire.
NTSC-J wrote:
I think it should. Psikyo players almost always have an ideal stage order in mind and rather than waste time waiting for the proper sequence, set it to what you want. DB is still hard, the real meat is in the later levels anyways.
Funny coming from someone who so abhors using savestates for practice since pcb players must do without .
I'm not sure where you got the idea that I don't like save states, I use them all the time just like I use the practice modes on the Arika and Taito Cave ports. Once I said something about Sik's score being advantaged by save states, I just meant that I wish that was on the PCB since that's all I have access to.
As for the random stages, I can go either way. I understand what you're saying about PCB players not having access to that option, but the Batrider stage select is also a code that isn't normally a default option. ESPrade also has a code for setting the stage order and no one seems to care. In the end it doesn't matter too much anyways.
Ex_Mosquito wrote:professor ganson: Why not just use the level options on the ps2 revision to practice the first 4 stages at 1-4 difficulty, that way anything less will be easier innit.
Im with you on the desert level though i find it the hardest out of the first 4 stages too.
A quick tip for the oversized ships. If you notice a dragon shot alone wont kill them. Using the dragon shot as soon as they appear is only gonna get you into trouble, what with trying to dodge extra spams and calling the dragon back, also if you kill them with the normal shot you're gonna miss out on all those gold coins from a non-dragon shot kill. What i find best is soften them up first with normal shot until they fire the first pattern (hang around in the centre then tap to either side) then dragon shot. Alot less messy and you get the gold coins.
These suggestions sound very helpful. I'll give them a try-- thanks.
