Mushihimesama PS2 pre-orders confirmed! (was: Is this real?)

[Dylan1CC]

[Nah. I seriously am satisfied with Progear, Saturn DDP, Mushihime and if it appears on PS2, Ibara as far as my Cave play goes. The next Cave game I get beyond these titles would be an EspRaDe PCB.

Really? Have you played ESPGaluda? I like that much more than Saturn DDP (and espRaDe). And DDPDOJ is a really essential purpose for any shmup fan w/ a PS2 (also way better than Saturn DDP!), as some others have already stated.

Hi, sorry I forgot to reply to your comment.

Actually, my "essentials" right now are Garegga, Radiant, Progear and DDP. As for DOJ being better than DDP, well I'm sure it is to a degree. But I have a far better chance of mastering DDP than I would DOJ based on how instense it is supposed to be. I am seriously trying to narrow down what I want and don't want in my shmup library as far as how much time I can spend since I have other projects now like drawing and writing. This is also why I will not be buying a Batrider PCB again since even though it's an awesome game, I'd rather master Garegga and Bakraid.

I dunno, I'm just far more interested in Mushihimesama than DOJ. I love how the main character is drawn, very sexy but charming and well detailed with a slight Miyazaki touch. Plus I have always been fascinated with insects (Mushi's art director called them "living mecha," so true...) As for Galuda, I dunno, the medal absorption and art style of the characters doesn't strike me much ( though I do like steam punk tech art as far as mecha goes), plus I have heard many prefer the original EsPRaDe. 8 1/2's recent post on EspRaDe linked below sold me on the first game instead of the second:

http://forum.shmups.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1655

[8 1/2]

I dunno, I'm just far more interested in Mushihimesama than DOJ. I love how the main character is drawn, very sexy but charming with a slight Miyazaki touch. Plus I have always been fascinated with insects (Mushi's art director called them "living mecha," so true...) As for Galuda, I dunno, the medal absorption and fairy/angel art style of the characters doesn't strike me much ( though I do like steam punk tech drawings)

Characters definitely add a lot to a game for me too. I would always take Gunbird over Strikers for instance.

Still, DOJ really sets the standard for modern shmups in my opinion. The Donpachi series is the flagship of Cave, and with that game they seemed to go all out to create something timeless. It's not just a great vertical shooter, but really it's THE vertical shooter. If most videogames are books to be read and understood, then DDPDOJ is an entire class. I think the only quote that sums up it's depth is a little piece from Teen Girl Squad..."When you fall into a bottomless pit, you die of starvation.(sic)" I have come away from this game feeling like I know something more about myself. Shmup Fight Club if you will. I come here because I WANT IT TO HIT ME AS HARD AS IT CAN.

[Rob]

Wow, whatever.

[Dylan1CC]

Yes. There is no market for it.

Indeed. You can perhaps find something, but it is very difficult. I never really thought S-Video was that much better than composite b/c I had small TVs until pretty recently. I captured a video from my PS2 in composite, then in S-video. I was shocked at the difference. Then again, since the source was jaggy....

Hayaiawa-- I try to forgive Texans. Dallas native here, even though I've long-since moved.

Hehe yeah, San Antonio is rather shooter-deprived... but I've introduced many friends to it, and they've all loved it.. but having arcades with only Strikers and Raiden Fighters kinda sucks.. :/ not that they are bad games by any means, but I pray for the day I find a cave shooter tucked away in some corner..

You think San Antonio is deprived of Shmups? Try my hometown here in North Dakota. I am in awe if I can find a Raiden machine or (recently) a 1943 cab. In fact, 3 years ago my brother told me "Hey Dylan, me and Cody found a Raiden II machine in the hotel north of town! How about you, me and Cody sneak into the pool area and play some old school games?" And so we did. Metal Gear style we infiltrated the hotel and played Raiden II and some old racing game. ha

Thanks for the TATE pic of your Sanyo TV, btw. One of my friends has the exact same TV and I have wondered what it would be like to try a game of Garegga or Radiant on it. I assume you're using S-video with your Saturn?

Also, love the avatar, Ultraman fan right?

[hikarutilmitt]

Not to just speak for him, but yeah he's using S-video on it. It looks really crisp with S-video and being a flat tube. It's the model before they put component into them, but it's still good either way. Galuda looks great on it, too.

[the2bears]

I left my puncutations at the door just like when i save my bombs until i die,, don't hate the player, hate the game son

Great reply to my rather sour comment. Sometimes I get in a mood and go off spoiling for a fight.

Bill

[HayakawaKen]

You think San Antonio is deprived of Shmups? Try my hometown here in North Dakota. I am in awe if I can find a Raiden machine or (recently) a 1943 cab. In fact, 3 years ago my brother told me "Hey Dylan, me and Cody found a Raiden II machine in the hotel north of town! How about you, me and Cody sneak into the pool area and play some old school games?" And so we did. Metal Gear style we infiltrated the hotel and played Raiden II and some old racing game. ha



I definately understand... and I wouldn't put myself past doing something like that, I heard at one point quite recently that our airport has somewhere hidden a Raiden Fighters Jet and 1944 The Loop Master cabinet... but unfortunately all the arcade game areas are now behind the security check point, so sneaking into there wouldn't be the best of ideas. Our local arcades used to have a ton of shooters too, stuff like Viper Phase 1, 19XX, Giga Wing, etc.. even weird obscure ones like Hotdog Storm. I think probably right now the weirdest one that any arcade has is Wyvern Wings.



Thanks for the TATE pic of your Sanyo TV, btw. One of my friends has the exact same TV and I have wondered what it would be like to try a game of Garegga or Radiant on it. I assume you're using S-video with your Saturn?


Yes, although be advised that with that particular model you will need something to prop it evenly, as by itself it sits at more of an angle.. Hikarutilmitt had the good idea of using my IIDX controller box along with a yellow pages phone book It worked quite well and was quite sturdy.


Also, love the avatar, Ultraman fan right?

Eheh, yeah along with being a shmups fan, I'm a long time tokusatsu fan, Ultraman, Kamen Rider (like my avatar, Kamen Rider V3) and sentai series (Power Rangers) grew up with em, always have liked em.

[zimeon]

The question of true low-res or faked low-res will probably not affect me that much, since most of my playing uses composite anyway. All my Scart inputs on my TV are busy anyway, I can't bother ripping them out each time I change console. not to mention most SCART RGB cables for consoles are too short.

However, I've never approved of sloppy work. True lowres before fake.

What I am concerned about is if the faked low-res will use more power from the machine, making is more liable to slowdown, or dropping frames. If that's the case, playability will most certainly be affected.

What intrigues me, however, is that some people seems to say that a HD TV is the only way that you'll see the difference between faked and true lowres anyway, whereas some others seem to say that playing on an HDTV will really screw up the picture.

I'm afraid I might be calling for too much here... but could someone enlighten me? I though I knew something about this, but obviously I don't...

And oh, yeah, good news of course. I'll buy the PS2 version as soon as I can get my hands on it.

[GaijinPunch]

Matt told me when I moved here of some places to play arcade games. I've only seen a few, and they look cheese to me. There's a Metal Slug 5 cab at the movie theatre, but I'm usually late for the movies.

[EOJ]

There's a Metal Slug 5 cab at the movie theatre, but I'm usually late for the movies.

Really? Are you talking about the Honolulu area? If so, which movie theatre? I usually go to Koko Marina or the Kahala 8-Plex. There's one of those multi-arcade machines at Koko, and I don't think there's anything at Kahala. I think there's an arcade at Ward-16 but I've only been there once.

[Recap]

The question of true low-res or faked low-res will probably not affect me that much, since most of my playing uses composite anyway. All my Scart inputs on my TV are busy anyway, I can't bother ripping them out each time I change console. not to mention most SCART RGB cables for consoles are too short.

So you have the possibility to use RGB and you're not using it. ... ... Oh well.

What I am concerned about is if the faked low-res will use more power from the machine,

Not really.

making is more liable to slowdown, or dropping frames. If that's the case, playability will most certainly be affected.

Sync issues may appear, as jiji pointed, so yep, 'playability' may be affected.

What intrigues me, however, is that some people seems to say that a HD TV is the only way that you'll see the difference between faked and true lowres anyway,

They're blind.

whereas some others seem to say that playing on an HDTV will really screw up the picture.

If the fake low res game has 31 kHz support and is filtered (assuming you don't like straight pixel-doubled presentation), it will benefit from a HDTV.

[system11]

The trouble with many new TVs as I've recently found, is the layers of processing which are aimed purely at TV and DVD footage. Out of all the current CRT type TVs I tested recently, every single one had some kind of issue with interlace, aside from the Panasonic 36" which has some tearing on fast movement and an over-processed look instead. The processing can't actually keep up with 60 frames per second interlaced, I'm not sure of the algorithm used - but where you see an enemy that flashes for 1 frame when hit, you'll see it flashing alternate lines instead - shadows done by flickering a dark patch (1 frame on, 1 frame off - old cheap technique) will be done with alternate lines too. This is a Toshiba 36ZP48 by the way for anyone in the UK doing TV shopping. I hadn't noticed this issue until I used it a lot.

It's kind of annoying actually, but weighed up against the various problems other sets suffer, it's the best I can hope for when choosing a set for a mix of gaming/TV watching. And don't touch the Sony 36 with a 10 foot pole for games, and plasma screens suffer from horrible motion fade type blur. Yes all of them, even the very expensive ones (I know, I tested over 20 sets of different makes and types with Gradius V).

[Recap]

The trouble with many new TVs as I've recently found, is the layers of processing which are aimed purely at TV and DVD footage. Out of all the current CRT type TVs I tested recently, every single one had some kind of issue with interlace, aside from the Panasonic 36" which has some tearing on fast movement and an over-processed look instead. The processing can't actually keep up with 60 frames per second interlaced, I'm not sure of the algorithm used - but where you see an enemy that flashes for 1 frame when hit, you'll see it flashing alternate lines instead - shadows done by flickering a dark patch (1 frame on, 1 frame off - old cheap technique) will be done with alternate lines too. This is a Toshiba 36ZP48 by the way for anyone in the UK doing TV shopping. I hadn't noticed this issue until I used it a lot.

It's kind of annoying actually, but weighed up against the various problems other sets suffer, it's the best I can hope for when choosing a set for a mix of gaming/TV watching. And don't touch the Sony 36 with a 10 foot pole for games, and plasma screens suffer from horrible motion fade type blur. Yes all of them, even the very expensive ones (I know, I tested over 20 sets of different makes and types with Gradius V).

You're pretty correct. It's a problem with big screens. <29'' CRT TVs work better for gaming purposes. Also, not every CRT is the same and not every RGB signal has the same quality. For those in Europe lookin' for a Sony CRT TV for gaming, avoid the Wega series and just buy a standard Trinitron; the difference is pretty noticeable.

[Thunder Force]

<29'' CRT TVs work better for gaming purposes.

For those in Europe lookin' for a Sony CRT TV for gaming, avoid the Wega series

I'm not in Europe but I will note here that I have put a Sony 29" Wega CRT (4:3 aspect and also offers simulated 16:9 widescreen compress mode, non-HD) through rigorous tests using hundreds of games mainly through Component Video and it has performed absolutely flawlessly - in fact it's probably among the best "overall" screen I have seen for gamers. So Sony's 29" (at least one model from a few years ago) is off the hook.

[Kron]

For those in Europe lookin' for a Sony CRT TV for gaming, avoid the Wega series and just buy a standard Trinitron; the difference is pretty noticeable.

The Wega series is fine as long as you don't get a 100hz model.

[chtimi-CLA]

I don't see why Ibara is any different, both have manga'esque characters. And Mushihime definitely isn't an established series.

that's why i said franchise OR mangaesque. also i don't count ibara as mangaesque, only the characters are (the rest of the design is basically battle garegga). what i'm saying is that MAYBE cave chose this character design for an otherwise classic design shmup for reasons of marketability of an eventual port.

[CMoon]

I doubt whether Ibara is manga-esque or not has anything to do with it getting (or not getting) a release. Also, to speak of cave and franchises...whew! Yeah, I know Donpachi has some SERIOUS name recognition around here!

Point being: neither franchise nor manga-looking characters will help sell a shooter these days. The market is being supported by the fans, and the fans will keep buying cave games (at their normal miniscule levels) if cave uses flying turds as the main characters.

It seems like whether a cave game gets released or not has more to do with whether they have the backing to do a port--either via another company or financial support from Taito. Now it would be interestesting if Taito has good luck with this release, perhaps they MIGHT consider pumping a little money Cave's way to port some older games. Afterall they did support those psikyo packs...

EDIT: Finally went ahead and preorderd. Had that $5 coupon burning a hole in my pocket, and like everyone else has said, this sends as strong a message as we can to Taito; namely that there is a demand (no matter how small) for this kind of product. I really think the worse that can happen here is that it be a lowsy port, but one lowsy port in a sea of great ports doesn't worry me too much. As said elsewhere, what happened to GWG was probably some sort of blunder. But since this game isn't type-x, it seems unlikely it would face the same kind of problems.

[zimeon]

For those in Europe lookin' for a Sony CRT TV for gaming, avoid the Wega series and just buy a standard Trinitron; the difference is pretty noticeable.

I'd like some more info on this, but since it's blatantly off topic, I guess I'll just start a new thread in the hardware section.

[sffan]

The market is being supported by the fans, and the fans will keep buying cave games (at their normal miniscule levels) if cave uses flying turds as the main characters.

This made me laugh.

[Kiken]

The processing can't actually keep up with 60 frames per second interlaced, I'm not sure of the algorithm used - but where you see an enemy that flashes for 1 frame when hit, you'll see it flashing alternate lines instead - shadows done by flickering a dark patch (1 frame on, 1 frame off - old cheap technique) will be done with alternate lines too. This is a Toshiba 36ZP48 by the way for anyone in the UK doing TV shopping. I hadn't noticed this issue until I used it a lot.

Well, that's because they're not actually frames... they're fields.

2 fields = 1 frame

But yeah, this is an interlacing issue.

[Icarus]

The market is being supported by the fans, and the fans will keep buying cave games (at their normal miniscule levels) if cave uses flying turds as the main characters.

Hmmm. Cave does a manic Toilet Kids. Could be interesting.

[system11]

The processing can't actually keep up with 60 frames per second interlaced, I'm not sure of the algorithm used - but where you see an enemy that flashes for 1 frame when hit, you'll see it flashing alternate lines instead - shadows done by flickering a dark patch (1 frame on, 1 frame off - old cheap technique) will be done with alternate lines too. This is a Toshiba 36ZP48 by the way for anyone in the UK doing TV shopping. I hadn't noticed this issue until I used it a lot.

Well, that's because they're not actually frames... they're fields.

2 fields = 1 frame

But yeah, this is an interlacing issue.

I've decided to keep the Toshiba and just live with it. I wanted a big TV for films, didn't want a Plasma due to the blur, and have no space for 2 TVs. It's a compromise, and only affects interlace games using on/off effects for shadows and flashing. They also have an overscan issue with NTSC, but this can be tuned in the service menu to be very minimal. On the upsides it doesn't motion tear, the sound is fantastic, it handles progressive just fine, and there's no delay between input and image appearing (a major issue with Sony 100hz).

[99pence]

Not sure I want Mushi so much now I know I can get it.

[velocity7]

The processing can't actually keep up with 60 frames per second interlaced, I'm not sure of the algorithm used - but where you see an enemy that flashes for 1 frame when hit, you'll see it flashing alternate lines instead - shadows done by flickering a dark patch (1 frame on, 1 frame off - old cheap technique) will be done with alternate lines too. This is a Toshiba 36ZP48 by the way for anyone in the UK doing TV shopping. I hadn't noticed this issue until I used it a lot.

Well, that's because they're not actually frames... they're fields.

2 fields = 1 frame

But yeah, this is an interlacing issue.

Speaking of interlacing with Cave games, I've noticed this during encoding tests with DOJ videos:

Basically, you know how interlaced signals work, right? Even and odd fields and stuff; they alternate in pattern and cut off half the image; bobbing usually solves this.

So if a frame usually looks like:
A B C D E F (from top to down)

Field 1 might look like A C E
and Field 2 might look like B D F

However, for Cave games, they took the frame:
A B C D E F

Dropped vertical resolution by 2:

AB CD EF

and then each field looked like:
AB CD EF
AB CD EF

I don't know why or how they managed this with the interlacing the PS2 sent out, but it looks great if you don't bob at all. Weird...

[chtimi-CLA]

stuff

you're probably right, it was a far-fetched hypothesis anyway.

edit: an arcade mushi puzzle game by cave is hinted at in the OST !

[Kiken]

stuff

you're probably right, it was a far-fetched hypothesis anyway.

edit: an arcade mushi puzzle game by cave is hinted at in the OST !

I seem to remember that there was something about this on Cave's website too... I think it was on the Mushihime-sama OST page... but I can't tell at the moment since the computers here at work aren't set up to decode the Japanese text.

[iatneH]

Just put money into my Paypal, I'll be pre-ordering this next week when the bank transfer clears. :D :D :D

[Dylan1CC]

I don't see why Ibara is any different, both have manga'esque characters. And Mushihime definitely isn't an established series.

that's why i said franchise OR mangaesque. also i don't count ibara as mangaesque, only the characters are (the rest of the design is basically battle garegga). what i'm saying is that MAYBE cave chose this character design for an otherwise classic design shmup for reasons of marketability of an eventual port.

I was a little mixed up. The main reason I drool over Ibara is of course the Garegga influence.

Nothing to do with Shasta I promise. *ahem*



But not Cindy:



Strongbad Voice from Teen Girl Squad: "She looks like a dude."

hehe

[iatneH]

Nothing to do with Shasta I promise. *ahem*

Good. Kasumi is MINE!!!

On a side note, how do I do those "so and so wrote:" ?

[Dylan1CC]

Nothing to do with Shasta I promise. *ahem*

Good. Kasumi is MINE!!!

On a side note, how do I do those "so and so wrote:" ?

Either click on the "quote" button or the "reply" button when posting a reply.