Cave's blog closing next month

[Tokyo-J]

"Deserve to die"?

Are you really that ****ed up?

Considering they have only ported Esprade to G-Mode cell phones shows me the amount of Ineptitude in the company is Immense. Also promising Dangun Feveron for some kind of port at one point and then wiping their collective asses with it does not help either.

[Thjodbjorn]

"Deserve to die"?

Are you really that ****ed up?

Considering they have only ported Esprade to G-Mode cell phones shows me the amount of Ineptitude in the company is Immense. Also promising Dangun Feveron for some kind of port at one point and then wiping their collective asses with it does not help either.

Haha, it only now hit me that you hopefully meant that the company deserved to die. After the line about ritual suicide, I thought you meant they as people deserved to die.

[Muchi Muchi Spork]

The world actually lucked out by having Dangun not ported. Seems ok at first and then you get to the later levels and it plays like a fast bullet memorizer D in your A. They compensate for bullets being too fast by letting you have your ship jump to ludicrous speeds making it harder and harder to control. Great graphics and sounds though. Could have used a touch of Ikeda.

[Hagane]

Those are not real issues, it's just you not playing anything outside of the regular Cave stuff.

[Muchi Muchi Spork]

I've played everything in mame, just don't enjoy the other stuff as much anymore. There was a time when I played Psikyo and Taito as much as Cave. I feel like Dangun has me held hostage because I have to clear it in order to get a clear on all the Cave boards and what happened, did Ikeda just turn a blind eye on this thing or what.

[Tokyo-J]

It is funny. I got into Cave at the beginning and prefer the older titles which felt more like Pure "Arcade Experiences".

I wish they would find a way to bring Esprade , Pro Gear and Donpachi to Next Gen consoles. I guess MAME will have to do until then.

[Muchi Muchi Spork]

I like all those games. Just Dangun feels frankly rushed, last minute cheap compensations instead of up all night tweakings.

[Deca]

I like all those games. Just Dangun feels frankly rushed, last minute cheap compensations instead of up all night tweakings.

Seems like you just need to learn you some caravan. Dangun is exactly what it wants to be.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

The world actually lucked out by having Dangun not ported. Seems ok at first and then you get to the later levels and it plays like a fast bullet memorizer D in your A. They compensate for bullets being too fast by letting you have your ship jump to ludicrous speeds making it harder and harder to control. Great graphics and sounds though. Could have used a touch of Ikeda.

Yeah the later levels are a tad too fast for me too. That's why I would liked to have seen that XBLA port as they would have probably included an easier mode like Guwange did.

[casualcoder]

Self-fulfilling prophecy folks. If so many of you so-called devoted fans of the genre talk this way and cave doesn't like the way they see the wind blowing it may just have a hand in making them close shop. I'm not usually bothered by this stuff but the built up animosity is kind of sickening to hear considering how much Cave has done for the genre.

[angrycoder]

Self-fulfilling prophecy folks. If so many of you so-called devoted fans of the genre talk this way and cave doesn't like the way they see the wind blowing it may just have a hand in making them close shop. I'm not usually bothered by this stuff but the built up animosity is kind of sickening to hear considering how much Cave has done for the genre.

^ this.

So Cave deserves to die because they have like 3 un-ported games. Or they didn't sell you enough posters. Or your gothic loli fuck pillow isn't self lubricating...

[Kollision]

Or your gothic loli fuck pillow isn't self lubricating...

thanks for the laugh, now I'm ready for bed

[zeroroute]

My prediction:

Based on the universal appeal and success of the SDOJ opening anime video, Cave embarks on a brave new mission with dododododododo DoDonPachi: The Series.

I feel like writing a synopsis, full of all the usual tropes, but I'm not quite awake yet.

It would basically be a harem anime with Pilot as the male protagonist. Maybe he is forced to take over as head of the DonPachi Corps after his father is murdered or something, I dunno. A high-schooler could probably write this.

Well I guess they could take the arcsys route...(since blazblue is getting an anime adaptation)

[awo]

This article, published today, states Cave has abolished all consumer game development (inclusive of console games, maybe arcade too?), and will focus solely on social and online games from now on. Asada's blog was used to chart the progress of their console games, so it is unsurprising he is closing it down, since their whole console division has been wiped out.

[AntiFritz]

Yeah, saw this mentioned a few other places. I can see them turning into raizing 2.0 now ie stop making shmups forever and live on doing like nothing.

Sad day for shmups anyway.

[kathy]

....but where is the motherfucking Ibara port?

[Pretas]

....but where is the motherfucking Ibara port?

On PS2.

So it's official now, Dodonpachi Saidaioujou is Cave's final STG, barring any PS3 ports from 5pb. At least they were able to conclude their flagship series in a way that returned to its original spirit (sans DFK's misguided obsession with bullet canceling). Really, there was no feasible better way for them to go out. Consider that Toaplan and Raizing's swan songs, Kyukyoku Tiger II and Brave Blade, were both very mediocre efforts.

What are the chances that Cave's entire arcade/consumer development staff will now jump ship to 5pb, G.Rev, or some other company more receptive of their talents?

[Teufel_in_Blau]

FUCK!!

[Jonathan Ingram]

It looks like they are closing for real this time. This needs a new topic.

[Cagar]

This article, published today, states Cave has abolished all consumer game development (inclusive of console games, maybe arcade too?), and will focus solely on social and online games from now on. Asada's blog was used to chart the progress of their console games, so it is unsurprising he is closing it down, since their whole console division has been wiped out.

It's all lies. Prepare for a new STG announcement from them soon.
Remember when they said DOJ will be their last stg? Remember when they talked about "our future STGs" in very recent interviews?
Ikeda, the millionaire sure will save the day somehow..

[Teufel_in_Blau]

It looks like they are closing for real this time. This needs a new topic.

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=46014

[Pretas]

It looks like they are closing for real this time. This needs a new topic.

Read more carefully. Cave isn't closing, just contracting. They will probably go on making their mobile and social games for at least a couple more years.

Of course, they will cease to have any relevance to our interests.

[Despatche]

No, Tokyo-J is really like that. I get the feeling Skykid is always equating Friendly with someone like Tokyo-J.

I like all those games. Just Dangun feels frankly rushed, last minute cheap compensations instead of up all night tweakings.

Your experience of Dangun is rushed; last minute cheap shots instead of up all night studying.

The game's very core is "bullet memorizer", starting from stage 1. In order to make a bullet memorizer more difficult as the game goes on, you have to make the bullets faster and you have to make them tougher to figure out (the former helps with the latter). Dangun does both exactly as it should and exactly as it wants to. For some reason, some part of you seems to clash with this, and as a subjective human being you have somehow become deluded from it; hard to explain, yet it happens all the time, and is a large part of why game design is so hard.

So, your choices are to either get over that, or to remove Dangun from your life... and either are respectable, I think. What's not is when you let that delusion take you over and cause you to blame the game for things it's not actually doing. You can't even begin to make the choice unless you can come to understand that this is a problem on your end; you're trying to go with that "third option", even though it isn't there.

Long story short, you're mad because the game's 2hrd4u. If anything in the game is rushed, it's the whole TLB thing with the bombs.

[Jonathan Ingram]

Read more carefully. Cave isn't closing, just contracting. They will probably go on making their mobile and social games for at least a couple more years.

I did read it. Thank you very much. If they are closing down their consumer division, then for all intents and purposes they are dead.

[Pretas]

I know you're angry and bitter over it but Cave isn't dead. For the moment, they still hold the IP to all of their titles, and may still make use of it in the future, perhaps through more original spin-off games on smartphones like Mushi: Bug Panic and DDP Maximum.

Once they start selling their IP off like Irem, or go out of business entirely, then we can treat them like they're gone.

[BIL]

Consider that Toaplan and Raizing's swan songs, Kyukyoku Tiger II and Brave Blade, were both very mediocre efforts.

Toaplan's swan song was Batsugun, or Batsugun Special at a stretch (it was never officially released). Kyuukyoku Tiger II was by Takumi.

[Pretas]

It was completed and published by Takumi. The bulk of development was done by Toaplan.

Snow Bros. 2 met a similar fate: Toaplan was apparently able to complete it, but it was released by a company called Hanafram without their name on it.

[BIL]

Uemura: The last group that entered Toaplan liked shooting games. I think their first game was V-V. It was made as a research project for new employees. And then came Batsugun, Toaplan's finale.

KTII was not "Toaplan's swan song."

[kathy]

Doesn't snow bros 2 blow ass though?

fwiw we *might* see the other titles released on our phones in 18 months... great

[Pretas]

I stand corrected.

Still, it's the last STG that really radiates the classic Toaplan spirit, even if it's a dull interpretation of that style. Air Gallet felt more like a Seibu or Psikyo work, and DonPachi seemed like it was doing its own thing from the very beginning, despite what Ikeda said about trying to make a Toaplan-like game.

I suppose Brave Blade is also a bit of a stretch for Raizing's final game. According to user Wenchang, it was made by "a bunch of younger people," with almost none of the usual staff and definitely no Yagawa. It's also a kind of botched vision of the company's trademark style: who thought juggling medals in the air with your weapon was a good idea? The difference is that it was released with Raizing's name on it.