Salamander, Parodius, Twinbee Collections on PSP

Necronom · Post by **Necronom** » Sat Oct 21, 2006 12:47 pm

@gameoverDude
Gradius V?! I don't think so. V is a pretty recent PS2 release and if they decide to port it some day they will probably make it a stand alone. V is not some several years old arcade title that can be emulated after all.

Dylan1CC · Post by **Dylan1CC** » Sun Oct 22, 2006 12:17 am

^^^

Considering it's basically a slightly scaled back PS2, I'd think the PSP could handle Gradius V with little problem.

nem · Post by **nem** » Sun Oct 22, 2006 4:38 am

The PSP is very different in its architecture, so Gradius V would have to be mostly rewritten. I can't really see that happening.

It could definitely handle it though.

Necronom · Post by **Necronom** » Sun Oct 22, 2006 10:28 am

Well, I didn't say that the PSP couldn't handle it, it's just that it would require a bigger effort than just having emulation and tweaking it a little bit which is probably the case with gradius and salamander compilations.
Besides that many PS2 games stream data while you play which is problematic on the PSP because it sucks the battery dry in no time.
Rockstar managed to pull of GTA on the PSP after all so I guess it's definitely possible to port something like Gradius V without too much loss, maybe even 1:1.

Dylan1CC · Post by **Dylan1CC** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 1:09 am

^^^

Thanks to both for the clarification.

bcass · Post by **bcass** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 3:39 am

What is all this talk of Konami 'not screwing up' collections? Gradius Portable collection for the PSP has all manner of things wrong with it, and I'm not just talking about the crap d-pad controls. Just to refresh everyones memories...

- Imperfect music looping (especially noticable on Gradius 2, Stage 1)

- Music skips ever so slightly sometimes during fade-outs

- Sound effects and speech are disproportionately balanced compared to the arcade/console originals (yes, I know there is an option in Gradius Gaiden, but not for the other titles, and even in Gaiden, you can't balance the speech, only the music and sfx)

- Music error occures on the Moai stage in Gradius 2 - the music speeds-up at the wrong point. In this version, the audio speeds-up on the 2nd loop of the tune, but it should in fact only speed-up half-way through the stage when the heads turn red and start turning in your direction

- There is a slight 'freeze' on screen in some of the titles between levels, probably indicating the loading of a new level - this is especially noticable in Gaiden, where the 'freeze' is longer, and happens just before bosses

- The save feature is arduous and very poorly implemented and puts a major dent in the flow of the game

- Imperfect emulation of slow-down - slowdown is present, but it doesn't accurately resemble the slowdown on the originals;

- Imperfect emulation of difficulty levels - again, not accurately resembling the originals;

Konami royally f*cked-up Gradius Portable. It was obviously rushed and has zero attention to detail, that such a well regarded franchise such as Gradius deserves. Instead of boring us with tat like this they need to get the more interesting games ported/collected. How about porting the Solar Assault games?

Post by **Icarus** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 3:47 am

Hence my worry at them buggering up Xexex.

gameoverDude · Post by **gameoverDude** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 10:27 pm

I too am kind of worried about Xexex being butchered, especially after Gradius Portable's faults. Could they end up making this one too easy or too hard compared to the arcade version?

Gradius V could definitely be done well, even if it would take a resolution hit and require reprogramming instead of emulation.

MSZ · Post by **MSZ** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 11:11 pm

Official site:

http://www.konami.jp/gs/game/shooting_tsp/

Battlesmurf · Post by **Battlesmurf** » Wed Nov 01, 2006 8:04 am

my browser has issues with that site..do we know when these are set to launch yet?

jiji · Post by **jiji** » Wed Nov 01, 2006 5:46 pm

The secret games in each of these have been announced (in Famitsu). The Twinbee pack has an upgraded version of Twinbee Da! for the Game Boy, and the Salamander and Parodius packs have upgraded versions of MSX Gradius II and Parodius, respectively.

Dylan1CC · Post by **Dylan1CC** » Thu Nov 02, 2006 8:38 am

Hrm. Maybe those who have played both can enlighten me as to whether or not Twinbee Bell Adventure would have been a better extra than Twinbee GB.

iatneH · Post by **iatneH** » Thu Nov 16, 2006 2:43 am

Pre-orders for the Parodius, Salamander, and Twinbee packs are open at play-asia and also at yesasia.

The "Best" version of Gradius Portable is also to be released on the same day, January 25. It's nice having "X" button cancel and "O" button advance :)

CMoon · Post by **CMoon** » Thu Nov 16, 2006 3:24 am

Would be nice to see some shooters ported that are not in the Gradius/R-Type vein (why oh why do we get these on every system?)

Yeah, Xexex is something different, but imagine how cool something like G-Darius would be on the PSP. THAT might actually convince me to get one (or I could just run roms on it...)

dai jou bu · Post by **dai jou bu** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 5:18 am

bcass wrote: Konami royally f*cked-up Gradius Portable. It was obviously rushed and has zero attention to detail, that such a well regarded franchise such as Gradius deserves. Instead of boring us with tat like this they need to get the more interesting games ported/collected. How about porting the Solar Assault games?

Icarus wrote:Hence my worry at them buggering up Xexex.

Guys, you're increasing the chances of jinxing me by stripping away another sliver of reasoning for owning this system, since I still have no real justification of having it. -_-

Kaspal · Post by **Kaspal** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 5:40 am

dai jou bu wrote:
bcass wrote: Konami royally f*cked-up Gradius Portable. It was obviously rushed and has zero attention to detail, that such a well regarded franchise such as Gradius deserves. Instead of boring us with tat like this they need to get the more interesting games ported/collected. How about porting the Solar Assault games?

Icarus wrote:Hence my worry at them buggering up Xexex.
Guys, you're increasing the chances of jinxing me by stripping away another sliver of reasoning for owning this system, since I still have no real justification of having it. -_-

dude... if you really like the system, get it... i did, and am happy with it, BUT im happier with the NDS Lite ... right now, im waiting for this collection and the metal slug one to come out, since im mostly playin NDS games, cuz the ones that are right now for the PSP are not my type...

anyways... PSP's a good system, but you have to make sure it DOES have a good offer for you, or else, save your money for somethin else.

bcass · Post by **bcass** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 9:54 am

A bit off-topic, but Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins is reason enough to own a PSP IMO. There's a spattering of other decent titles for it too. I'd be cautious about getting one until next year now though. I have a hunch that Sony will relaunch it next year with a better design at a cheaper price point.

dai jou bu · Post by **dai jou bu** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 2:01 pm

Kaspal wrote: dude... if you really like the system, get it...

It was kinda trust upon me by my friend as a Christmas gift last year, which hasn't been used at all until about two weeks ago when I got the Gurumin port for it (a title that would sorta relieve me of the negative karma for keeping the PSP sealed in its box all this time, although it is kind of sad to realize that a port from another home/portable platform is the system's killer app), only to realize the horror which were the load times (since loading time on a handheld defeats the purpose of on-and-off gaming on the go), a feature nonexistent on the PC iteration.

Darkfield · Post by **Darkfield** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 1:16 am

I think the U.S. PSP can play japanese imports. Can anyone confirm this because there are a few PSP shmups that never left japan. Which to me would be more reason to buy one.

Kaspal · Post by **Kaspal** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 5:05 am

Darkfield wrote:I think the U.S. PSP can play japanese imports. Can anyone confirm this because there are a few PSP shmups that never left japan. Which to me would be more reason to buy one.

PSP its a region free machine when it comes down to games (i dont know about movies... dont care about'em at all anyway)... now, as far as i remember, theres just a couple shmups for the PSP (officially released anyway... there are hombrewed ones, but that's another story)... lemme see:

Gradious Collection
Platipus
Space invaders (or something ike that)

and a couple more that i dotn remember right now...

if you wanna play shmups on this system, get an emu and make it run, otherwise, the offering of shmups for the console its pretty... low (unless you go for the homebrewed ones... there are good and interesting offerings...)

like i said... right now, im waiting for MS Anthology to come out, since all i do with my PSP lately its play Progear and nothjing else... but it will change (unless i get a killer NDS game on my hands....................) for good.

Thunder Force · Post by **Thunder Force** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 5:49 am

Kaspal wrote:as far as i remember, theres just a couple shmups for the PSP

Actually there are already over two dozen officially released shmups on the PSP including:

Galaga, Galaga Arrangement '05, Galaxian, Xevious, Bosconian, Varth, Forgotten Worlds, Side Arms, Platypus, Eco Fighters, Dragon Spirit, 1942, 1943 Kai, 1941, 3 Wonders, Section Z, Legendary Wings, Gun.Smoke, Exed Exes, Vulgus, Defender, Sinistar, Gradius, Gradius II, Gradius III, Gradius IV, Gradius Gaiden, Sengoku Cannon, Star Soldier, etc.

This January is going to be impressive for PSP users, with all these being available on the same day:

Salamander, Life Force, Salamander 2, Xexex, Parodius Da!, Gokujou Parodius, Sexy Parodius, Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius, TwinBee, Deta Na TwinBee, Pop'n TwinBee, TwinBee Yahho, Twinbee Da GB Arranged, Gradius II MSX Arranged, Parodius MSX Arranged

bcass · Post by **bcass** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 9:32 am

Which pack is Gradius II MSX Arranged on? Presumably they will fix the dodgey MSX scrolling on this one.

Thunder Force · Post by **Thunder Force** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 2:43 pm

bcass wrote:Which pack is Gradius II MSX Arranged on?

Quoting jiji's post about it:

jiji wrote:Salamander and Parodius packs have upgraded versions of MSX Gradius II and Parodius, respectively

BrianC · Post by **BrianC** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 4:34 pm

MSZ wrote:Official site:

http://www.konami.jp/gs/game/shooting_tsp/

Ugh. 1p only again? Both Gradius Portable PSP and Goemon 1 & 2 for GBA are missing 2 player support. The PSP supports wireless and one of the charms of Twinbee is playing the game in 2 player. Life Force/Salamander without 2 player is a bummer too. Oddly enough, the Famicom Mini Twinbee actually supports single cart multiplayer, despite how screens only show the 1p option (the 2p option only shows up if you choose the game link option from the pop up menu).

I also hope these next collections are more polished the the Goemon and Gradius collections. Goemon 1 & 2 has various glitches (no game killing ones, but some very annoying ones that make you restart the game, mostly in Goemon 2) and there is slowdown in Goemon 2 GBA that I'm not sure was a carryover from the SNES game.

Dylan1CC · Post by **Dylan1CC** » Sat Dec 16, 2006 11:09 pm

BrianC wrote:
MSZ wrote:Official site:

http://www.konami.jp/gs/game/shooting_tsp/
Ugh. 1p only again? Both Gradius Portable PSP and Goemon 1 & 2 for GBA are missing 2 player support. The PSP supports wireless and one of the charms of Twinbee is playing the game in 2 player. Life Force/Salamander without 2 player is a bummer too. Oddly enough, the Famicom Mini Twinbee actually supports single cart multiplayer, despite how screens only show the 1p option (the 2p option only shows up if you choose the game link option from the pop up menu).

Agreed, it's very sloppy on Konami's part not to include some kind of wireless multiplayer. Not only that, game sharing multiplayer is supported in games such as CC Reloaded and even some high end titles like Burnout Legends. So, there is even less of an excuse for a company such as Konami to leave it out for these games which take up so little RAM and are perfect for single disc VS. This omission especially hurts for Twinbee which as you said has great 2P co-op gameplay.

It'd also be nice if you could map fire/bomb to the analog nub when holding your PSP in TATE (a great control feature for the shmups in CC Remixed)

JBC · Post by **JBC** » Sun Dec 17, 2006 11:35 pm

I just now found out about this. Sounds sexy. I can't wait to carry Xexex around with me /drool

Thunder Force · Post by **Thunder Force** » Sat Jan 06, 2007 11:56 am

Images here of official shmup decorations for your PSP, courtesy of Konami

Batman34 · Post by **Batman34** » Sat Jan 06, 2007 5:21 pm

Salamander 2 the best Shmup game ever on the Portable PSP perhaps better than the Saturn version.

iatneH · Post by **iatneH** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 6:30 am

But the D-pad on the Parodius skin removes like 57% of the boobage!

Zeether · Post by **Zeether** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 4:17 pm

Will we get these collections in the US?