Ketsui is officially cancelled for the PS2

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Mon Jan 29, 2007 11:14 pm

All of the above were leaked by the white side of the world. See my note about "damn Japanese work ethic".

lawnspic · Post by **lawnspic** » Mon Jan 29, 2007 11:31 pm

GaijinPunch wrote:All of the above were leaked by the white side of the world. See my note about "damn Japanese work ethic".

lol, yeah you got a point there. I did not look at that aspect. Well, i hope this part of the world rubs off (just this once at least, it is for a good cause, like my selfish need to play this) because i really want to play this game. Arcades in NY suck, at least on the island. Also the closest thing to a shmup here is a beatup SNK MVS cab with a shot monitor playing Metal Slug.

rtw · Post by **rtw** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 12:23 am

icycalm wrote:For those who can't afford PCBs -- i.e. for the vast majority of people -- the only solution for playing arcade-perfect Cave shooters is MAME, and it's a damn fine one. (DOJ and Galuda are two notable exceptions.)

Eventually MAME will make redundant even the Ibara and Mushihime PS2 ports, since with MAME you'll be able to connect your PC to a 15kHz monitor and get true low-res graphics.

Could be a long time, AFAIK the bullet patterns are stored inside an encrypted microcontroller. I.e. might need to do some serious chip capping here.

rtw

Frederik · Post by **Frederik** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 12:34 am

rtw wrote:the bullet patterns are stored inside an encrypted microcontroller

Can you explain this bit?

EOJ · Post by **EOJ** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 12:41 am

interesting, rtw. Thanks for that info.

I doubt we'll be seeing any Cave SH3 game on MAME in the next 10 years. Heck, we don't even have the previous hardware Cave shmups in MAME yet (Galuda, DDPDOJ, Ketsui), and there's no indication that we are even close to having them. By the time the SH3 games do materialize in MAME or some emu (if they ever do), I'll probably have lost interest in this hobby anyway.

And no, MAME versions of Cave games available thus far are not arcade-perfect. There are noticable differences in slowdown and game speed. Still much better than the Taito ports, though.

jiji · Post by **jiji** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 2:21 am

GaijinPunch wrote:This is for sure? I even remember them saying before it was released that all VC games were progressive (meaning high-res progressive). If this is the case, it would need a nice stick to go with it, and of course an RGB cable.

480p is also supported. If the Wii is in progressive mode, the games are in 480p; otherwise they're in 240p.

The situation with Wii RGB is about as lame as it was with the N64 and Gamecube, unfortunately. NTSC consoles don't output RGB at all - only component, S-video, composite.

Valgar · Post by **Valgar** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 3:00 am

NTSC-J wrote:It's funny to me that after years of hearing at this board about how shoddy the Mushi, Ibara, Giga Wing Generations, etc. ports are, now that a company refuses to release an inferior product, everyone is saying "we'll take it! I don't care if it sucks!"

It definitely would be better than nothing, but Ketsui deserves better than that. If Arika can't do it right, then they're smart in not doing it at all.

DOUBLE TRUE.

A broken stage 5 would suck ass. Ketsui's Stage 5 is an orgasmic trip to hell. I mean fuck, it is the heart of EVAC, and you fight your OWN HELICOPTER.

Specineff · Post by **Specineff** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 3:24 am

Valgar wrote:
Specineff wrote: Why do I get the feeling that the DC would have been able to handle this?
Just let it die man...just let it die.

"The Legend Will Never Die."

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 3:29 am

There are noticable differences in slowdown and game speed.

Only noticeable w/ a fine-toothed come by a seasoned vet. If you've not mastered the game, it is likely you will not notice these deficiencies. I've played Guwange & ESPrade extensively on both. They could be better though.

EOJ · Post by **EOJ** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 3:48 am

GaijinPunch wrote:Only noticeable w/ a fine-toothed come by a seasoned vet. If you've not mastered the game, it is likely you will not notice these deficiencies. I've played Guwange & ESPrade extensively on both. They could be better though.

I've probably become spoiled with my PCBs. I used to be very content with the Mushi PS2 port, I even defended its accuracy on many occasions. Now that I have the PCB, I cannot settle for anything less than that, and I can never play the port again. In fact, I find my scores on that version to be largely irrelevant. It feels like a different game from the PCB, and personally I don't believe scores on the PS2 version are truly comparable to those on the PCB. Ibara is even worse in this regard.

For me, I really want the exact same gameplay experience I find if I waltz into a Japanese arcade and plop in 50-100 yen. Right now most of the ports and MAME stuff do not give me that. So I just can't play them anymore.

NTSC-J · Post by **NTSC-J** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 3:59 am

twe wrote:
GaijinPunch wrote:Only noticeable w/ a fine-toothed come by a seasoned vet. If you've not mastered the game, it is likely you will not notice these deficiencies. I've played Guwange & ESPrade extensively on both. They could be better though.
I've probably become spoiled with my PCBs. I used to be very content with the Mushi PS2 port, I even defended its accuracy on many occasions. Now that I have the PCB, I cannot settle for anything less than that, and I can never play the port again. In fact, I find my scores on that version to be largely irrelevant. It feels like a different game from the PCB, and personally I don't believe scores on the PS2 version are truly comparable to those on the PCB. Ibara is even worse in this regard.

For me, I really want the exact same gameplay experience I find if I waltz into a Japanese arcade and plop in 50-100 yen. Right now most of the ports and MAME stuff do not give me that. So I just can't play them anymore.

I'm starting to really agree with you there. Going back to non-Arika ports and mame is hard after so much time at the arcade. I'm not going to use superguns anymore either, only a proper sit-down pony cabinet will do.

EOJ · Post by **EOJ** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 4:14 am

I'm very happy with my Sigma AV7000 supergun and 25" RGB monitor setup at the moment. I don't feel the need for a cab personally (and I've played on Japanese cabs). Of course I wouldn't mind having one either! Maybe some day, but for now I'm completely content with my current setup.

russ · Post by **russ** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 4:47 am

NTSC-J wrote:I'm starting to really agree with you there. Going back to non-Arika ports and mame is hard after so much time at the arcade. I'm not going to use superguns anymore either, only a proper sit-down pony cabinet will do.

Although this may be true, the big problem is that "casual" gamers and people who haven't played the game are pretty much on the opposite end of your argument. I used to own the game on PCB and played it in a cab almost every day, but I'd sure as hell be willing to settle for a decent port (including potential technical discrepancies) for $60 instead of the investment of the former. For most, a game's technical perfection isn't enough to warrant the large investment, hence this thread.

(I know, this argument is pretty redundant throughout the forums. I just felt it was necessary considering this thread is to mourn the loss of a port and not an invitation to "buy the PCB instead")

My usual bullshit aside - Ketsui, you will be missed. And the game is actually badass enough to tempt me to save up and drop large sums of cash on the board again. Damn you college budget!

rtw · Post by **rtw** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 7:14 am

FrederikJurk wrote:
rtw wrote:the bullet patterns are stored inside an encrypted microcontroller
Can you explain this bit?

I remember a post from one of the MAMEDEV's stating that the there is an encrypted ARM processor which generates the bullet patterns. I.e. the program and data is stored inside the chip so you can't do an eavesdrop on the data lines.

rtw

D · Post by D » Tue Jan 30, 2007 7:44 am

The argument that the PS2 cannot handle all 2D games is absurd.
There is not a single 2D game that the PS2 cannot handle.
The only conclusion we can draw is that they programmed it wrong.
I wonder how much work would be required to reprogram the 5th stage.
They could even opt to reprogram the main code and just have that running for just the fitth stage. They could just leave the other levels as is and when the PS2 loads the fifth stage, different code is loaded.
Anybody with a moderate knowledge of coding and the PS2 hardware could tell.
It could just be that that is not the real reason it's cancelled.
We can only guess about their true motives.

EOJ · Post by **EOJ** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 7:52 am

D wrote:The argument that the PS2 cannot handle all 2D games is absurd.
There is not a single 2D game that the PS2 cannot handle.
The only conclusion we can draw is that they programmed it wrong.

How do you know this? Did you design the PS2 yourself?

iatneH · Post by **iatneH** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 7:53 am

D wrote:The argument that the PS2 cannot handle all 2D games is absurd.
There is not a single 2D game that the PS2 cannot handle.
The only conclusion we can draw is that they programmed it wrong.
I wonder how much work would be required to reprogram the 5th stage.
They could even opt to reprogram the main code and just have that running for just the fitth stage. They could just leave the other levels as is and when the PS2 loads the fifth stage, different code is loaded.
Anybody with a moderate knowledge of coding and the PS2 hardware could tell.
It could just be that that is not the real reason it's cancelled.
We can only guess about their true motives. :?

D: You did it all wrong!
Arika: Oh yeah?? Think you can do a better job??? HUH???
D: Yes. *chuckle*
Arika: Show us what you got, gaijin!
D: (releases game as-is) and.. .PROFIT FOR ALL!!

zakk · Post by **zakk** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 7:59 am

D wrote:The argument that the PS2 cannot handle all 2D games is absurd.
There is not a single 2D game that the PS2 cannot handle.
The only conclusion we can draw is that they programmed it wrong.
I wonder how much work would be required to reprogram the 5th stage.
They could even opt to reprogram the main code and just have that running for just the fitth stage. They could just leave the other levels as is and when the PS2 loads the fifth stage, different code is loaded.
Anybody with a moderate knowledge of coding and the PS2 hardware could tell.
It could just be that that is not the real reason it's cancelled.
We can only guess about their true motives.

I'm shocked it took 5 pages for someone to post something like this.

Inkvisitor · Post by **Inkvisitor** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 9:07 am

D wrote:They could just leave the other levels as is and when the PS2 loads the fifth stage, different code is loaded.

With my limited experience as a codemonkey I would say it's usually a matter of how much time there is in the budget. Most of the time you are bossed around to make the quick and dirty solution to everything. Time is money my friend. And it's all bollocks ofcourse.

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 9:21 am

Inkvisitor wrote:With my limited experience as a codemonkey I would say it's usually a matter of how much time there is in the budget.

I dare say they've had plenty of time. They apparently have been work on this to SOME extent for well over a year.

I'm shocked it took 5 pages for someone to post something like this.

Indeed... perhaps the dumbest thing I've read on the interweb in ages. Has to be sarcastic. But then again, who knows.

Anyway, in the spirit of Ketsui never leaving the PCB world, I put in some serious play and finally cleared the first loop. It was an ass ugly clear, but who fucking cares. One day, zakk might even udpate the Hi Score list </hint>.

Kiken · Post by **Kiken** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 2:37 pm

I just have to wonder... is it even possible to implement some sort of RAM and/or ROM expansion device on the PS2? Something like the 1 and 4 Meg RAM carts for the Saturn. Obviously, if they included some piece of physical hardware with the game, it would increase the price, perhaps 2 fold... but I'd still pay that.

*Edit

Also, despite the fact that mid-level loading is annoying, I did notice 2 spots in stage 5 where it would be possible to implement without completely screwing over the flow of the game:
1. During the explosion of the mid-boss. As soon as it's dead, you get the bee-copter swarm, but it spends several seconds detonating at which point nothing else is occuring on-screen.
2. There is a slight lull in the action right as the tate-ana section begins.

I guess there is technically a third possibility... doing it at the bottom of the shaft during the large plane explosion (it nulifies all the bullets on-screen).

Limbrooke · Post by **Limbrooke** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 4:34 pm

Kiken wrote:I just have to wonder... is it even possible to implement some sort of RAM and/or ROM expansion device on the PS2? Something like the 1 and 4 Meg RAM carts for the Saturn. Obviously, if they included some piece of physical hardware with the game, it would increase the price, perhaps 2 fold... but I'd still pay that.

*Edit

Also, despite the fact that mid-level loading is annoying, I did notice 2 spots in stage 5 where it would be possible to implement without completely screwing over the flow of the game:
1. During the explosion of the mid-boss. As soon as it's dead, you get the bee-copter swarm, but it spends several seconds detonating at which point nothing else is occuring on-screen.
2. There is a slight lull in the action right as the tate-ana section begins.

I guess there is technically a third possibility... doing it at the bottom of the shaft during the large plane explosion (it nulifies all the bullets on-screen).

Regarding the RAM issue, wouldn't it be simply easier to just ultilize the HDD expansion, thereby eliminating streaming of media. At least that way the processing could be shared in a sense. That doesn't really solve on the fly processing that still requires RAM but it's better allocation as I'm concerned.

Kiken · Post by **Kiken** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 4:40 pm

Limbrooke wrote:Regarding the RAM issue, wouldn't it be simply easier to just ultilize the HDD expansion, thereby eliminating streaming of media. At least that way the processing could be shared in a sense. That doesn't really solve on the fly processing that still requires RAM but it's better allocation as I'm concerned.

Yeah.. but the HDD is only for the original model PS2, right? So that would screw over anybody with a slim.

Limbrooke · Post by **Limbrooke** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 4:55 pm

Kiken wrote:Yeah.. but the HDD is only for the original model PS2, right? So that would screw over anybody with a slim.

That's true although it's hard to remember the slim system when you own 4 originals. On that note, perhaps if Arika could manufacture some sort of USB RAM expansion then perhaps all facets could be covered. I just don't see this happening though, that and if it would solve all the processing issues associated.

EDIT
Even then, the inclusion of such an adaptor would raise the price to a point where I doubt any profit would be manageable, which is something Arika probably cannot afford to do.

Dandy J · Post by **Dandy J** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 6:12 pm

NTSC-J wrote:It's funny to me that after years of hearing at this board about how shoddy the Mushi, Ibara, Giga Wing Generations, etc. ports are, now that a company refuses to release an inferior product, everyone is saying "we'll take it! I don't care if it sucks!"

Hey if it makes you feel any better, I throughly enjoyed Ibara, and if I liked Mushi I would've enjoyed that too. I mean yeah the scaling sucks (especially for Mushi; I think they employed a slightly different filter/aspect ratio for Ibara), but the games are still fun.

D wrote:words

The PS2 has 32mb of RAM.

32mb of RAM.

32. 32 megabytes.

tiw · Post by **tiw** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 6:18 pm

And 4mb of texture memory.

SFKhoa · Post by **SFKhoa** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 10:14 pm

Kiken wrote:
Limbrooke wrote:Regarding the RAM issue, wouldn't it be simply easier to just ultilize the HDD expansion, thereby eliminating streaming of media. At least that way the processing could be shared in a sense. That doesn't really solve on the fly processing that still requires RAM but it's better allocation as I'm concerned.
Yeah.. but the HDD is only for the original model PS2, right? So that would screw over anybody with a slim.

If only the memory card can somehow be used to cache data.

Kiken · Post by **Kiken** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 10:19 pm

SFKhoa wrote:
Kiken wrote:
Limbrooke wrote:Regarding the RAM issue, wouldn't it be simply easier to just ultilize the HDD expansion, thereby eliminating streaming of media. At least that way the processing could be shared in a sense. That doesn't really solve on the fly processing that still requires RAM but it's better allocation as I'm concerned.
Yeah.. but the HDD is only for the original model PS2, right? So that would screw over anybody with a slim.
If only the memory card can somehow be used to cache data.

I was actually thinking along these lines. Although, probably having a dedicated RAM card that is shaped like a memory card would be better... since it can't be over-written.

The question then is: how quickly can the PS2 hardware communicate through the memory card port?

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 10:33 pm

Stop... think....
A memory device for one game. Yeah, I know, all games could use it, but you're now talking about new devices for old hardware.

ReKleSS · Post by **ReKleSS** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 11:12 pm

I believe memory card access is actually quite slow, too slow to be of any interest here.

It's not hard to send textures to the video ram from main ram while stuff is rendering - I don't think the 4mb is the problem.

I'd say it's most likely that there _is_ some way to force the PS2 to do Ketsui, but actually making it do so will require all sorts of black magic.

Anyway, Mihara has written a bit more on the feasibility of various ports, concluding that none would be worthwhile.