Strania: The Stella Machina EX coming to Switch

[Necronom]

To me the producer's comment reads as follows:
G.Rev has resources for only one platform, so they chose the one that is most popular in Japan and has the biggest sales potential.
G.Rev themselves won't port it to another platform but that doesn't mean that City Connection or others can't make an offer.
This is an experiment. Sales numbers will decide the future strategy.

Imho having a portable version of an arcade shmup of this caliber is pretty much a no-brainer. This will hopefully generate sales numbers that are good enough to make a port to Steam profitable...before it gets emulated or Exa gets cracked and opened.

[pablumatic]

NA confirmed at least and in English! $15 USD/$20 CDN!

https://www.dekudeals.com/items/strania ... machina-ex

The true worth of an Exa title.

I'll definitely grab it for that price.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

So G.Rev was seriously taking the North American installed Switch user base into consideration in addition to the Japanese region installed Switch user base (means more money to fund whatever games that they decide to release next indeed). They could mine their existing back-catalog and port their Naomi/DC port of Border Down to modern-day consoles (unless they're waiting to release games on the upcoming Switch 2 handheld with it's larger 8" diagonally measured 16.9 aspect ratio widescreen setup compared to the current Oled Switch's 7" diagonally measured 16.9 aspect ratio screen setup).

The real question to ask of the Switch 2 handheld hybrid then is, will it come with an Oled screen setup as standard (or will we have to settle with an older and outdated LCD screen setup instead)? Whenever Nintendo gets around to officially announcing it's Switch 2 unveiling + hardware specs later on down the road in 2025 -- there's speculation that by the end of March 2025, the 411 on it could be released. Samsung makes some really nice Oled-based screens for portables nowadays.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[kid aphex]

Absolutely amazing. Strania is in my Top 10... maybe Top 5.
It might also be Keishi Yonao's best work - which is saying a LOT.

Will buy the digital just to support G.rev and will gladly double dip if a physical cart gets released.

[dai jou bu]

For a mere $15 to support the homies at G.Rev self-publishing this, I'll buy it on eshop and just buy it again if it ends up getting a later physical cart release. I want them to make enough money to do Border Down too!

I’ve bought too much of their stuff already, hence why I’m patient enough to wait for a physical release.

Unless this is game is foreshadowing the release of Senko no Ronde Rev. NX (which the 360 is the only official home port of the game), which I’d buy instantly because that’s become the VOOT of the IP while its sequel is Force

[Lemnear]

But why only on Switch?

Because G.Rev is handling this entire project by themselves, so expect them to remain focused on a single console (ie- xbox 360 exclusive for 7th gen) unless someone hands them a bag of money to do a multiport.

A niche game sold to a niche audience? Some people don't like money I see.
If they liked it they would have spent a little more to port a game that lasts how long? 30min? 1 hour?... I've seen very stupid games with zero demand being scattered everywhere.
Same goes for SaiDaiJou eh

To me the producer's comment reads as follows:
G.Rev has resources for only one platform, so they chose the one that is most popular in Japan and has the biggest sales potential.
G.Rev themselves won't port it to another platform but that doesn't mean that City Connection or others can't make an offer.

Well I hope that City-Connection's reputation has improved a bit now, Under Defeat is an impeccable porting, even if it lacks a few extra features.

[dai jou bu]

A niche game sold to a niche audience? Some people don't like money I see.
If they liked it they would have spent a little more to port a game that lasts how long? 30min? 1 hour?... I've seen very stupid games with zero demand being scattered everywhere.
Same goes for SaiDaiJou eh

You ignored the second paragraph in my post explaining the possible reason why they chose to focus on one home platform for this port since it’s only G.Rev themselves handling this without someone with a bag of money and/or a bigger team of people (ie- a third party publisher) providing the means to bring it to multiple consumer platforms.

There’s modern examples of where game devs started off releasing their game to multiple platforms and storefronts but decided to stick to a particular one after the updates started rolling out, leaving those who didn’t get the game on the Dev’s blessed platform out of luck.

[Sima Tuna]

The price certainly looks right. I'd buy it just off the price and the devs, despite not having played this before.

[Lemnear]

A niche game sold to a niche audience? Some people don't like money I see.
If they liked it they would have spent a little more to port a game that lasts how long? 30min? 1 hour?... I've seen very stupid games with zero demand being scattered everywhere.
Same goes for SaiDaiJou eh

You ignored the second paragraph in my post explaining the possible reason why they chose to focus on one home platform for this port since it’s only G.Rev themselves handling this without someone with a bag of money and/or a bigger team of people (ie- a third party publisher) providing the means to bring it to multiple consumer platforms.

There’s modern examples of where game devs started off releasing their game to multiple platforms and storefronts but decided to stick to a particular one after the updates started rolling out, leaving those who didn’t get the game on the Dev’s blessed platform out of luck.

Yes I know how it works more or less, but I remain shocked that there are many insignificant games that instead are ported everywhere, as if the team behind it had who knows what funds.
But maybe a SHMUPS is difficult to port elsewhere, I don't know. Of course they could have spent some of the money made with the port of Under Defeat
The good news though is that EXA is not impenetrable

[Bassa-Bassa]

They are, I'm afraid. Most games for their platform have them as the publisher, the developer, or co-developer. Strania EX is getting a home release because it's entirely a Grev game (development and IP-wise) and likely Exarcadia were too eager to have them aboard, so the conditions for this game to get a version there were likely quite lax for once. Still, it's not exactly the same thing despite the name.

As for it not getting a PS4/PS5 or Windows version, what we should really wonder is how in the world Grev is still alive and able to selfpublish anything in 2025. Ignoring unpopular systems in Japan, or those hard to support properly, is the most natural approach for such a modest company.

[dai jou bu]

A niche game sold to a niche audience? Some people don't like money I see.
If they liked it they would have spent a little more to port a game that lasts how long? 30min? 1 hour?... I've seen very stupid games with zero demand being scattered everywhere.
Same goes for SaiDaiJou eh

You ignored the second paragraph in my post explaining the possible reason why they chose to focus on one home platform for this port since it’s only G.Rev themselves handling this without someone with a bag of money and/or a bigger team of people (ie- a third party publisher) providing the means to bring it to multiple consumer platforms.

There’s modern examples of where game devs started off releasing their game to multiple platforms and storefronts but decided to stick to a particular one after the updates started rolling out, leaving those who didn’t get the game on the Dev’s blessed platform out of luck.

Yes I know how it works more or less, but I remain shocked that there are many insignificant games that instead are ported everywhere, as if the team behind it had who knows what funds.
But maybe a SHMUPS is difficult to port elsewhere, I don't know. Of course they could have spent some of the money made with the port of Under Defeat
The good news though is that EXA is not impenetrable

Shmups are very stringent in their programming, otherwise we wouldn’t have people on this forum crying bloody murder that X game has five frames of lag on the switch port and that’s the only version we’re gonna get for this generation, so you need a developer who understands how to grok a hardware platform’s hardware to the point they can optimize around these shortcomings.

Coupled this with the fact that G.Rev is part of the arcade era and understands this very well, so they have to focus on one platform to make their game run as best as it can. There’s a reason why it took almost five years for guilty her strive to finally arrive on the switch.

Also, psyvariar delta was ported awhile back, so have no idea what the big deal is about EXA ports. Just buy the hardware if you care about the game that much already lol

[Lemnear]

in short, do the Switch versions of SHMUPS sell more than the others? If they chose Switch and not PC...

[dai jou bu]

Switch has the largest user base for this generation; they have sold just slightly under the PS2 at this point, so the sales comparisons between one platform versus the switch is going to be skewed in the latter’s favor. A lot of people during the PS2 era have the same complaints of the ports for it like the switch does today; the more things change the more they stay the same.

Personally I prefer them to bring the game to a console first because if it’s going on PC, it’s going on steam, and steam is… eww.

That, and it’s easier to play Tate games in handheld mode.

[Lander]

It doesn't take five years to figure out how to program for Switch. That's an intractable amount of time for professional software engineers to stand around stroking their chins, even ignoring the fact that we now exist in the age of abstractions and mile-high middleware stacks designed to leapfrog over the hardware complexity.

Exclusives are a function of financials and business direction - Switch is a wildly popular platform, so it gets focused on. If anything, lack of a PC port is a function of the outdated PC doesn't matter mindset that was endemic to japanese game development for so long.

And what's so eww about Steam in comparison to any given console store platform? That sounds suspiciously partisan to me.

[DenimDemon]

Will buy this day one since its fantastic and I want them to do Border Down.

[dai jou bu]

It doesn't take five years to figure out how to program for Switch. That's an intractable amount of time for professional software engineers to stand around stroking their chins, even ignoring the fact that we now exist in the age of abstractions and mile-high middleware stacks designed to leapfrog over the hardware complexity.

Translation: "We demand more powerful hardware to brute force our code since we can't be arsed to figure out how to optimize it for weaker hardware."

I'm currently playing Virgo Versus the Zodiac, and there's moments in the game where it would randomly slow down on the switch version, and it's only using sprite-based graphics. "So, it's an RPG anyway," you might reply, to which I would say those moments where it slows down? It happens during combat where you need to press the button at the right time, and I have no idea when the game's going to slow down or randomly pause because it's that unpredictable, and pressing the button at the wrong time can mean the difference between a successful block, or getting your character one-shot. Yeah, stroking their beards indeed.

"That's not a shmup!" you'd then reply. Ok, then why does Trouble Witches Final take over 5000 years to load the next stage on the switch when the xbox 360 port or other versions of the same game over the years doesn't have this problem? Running the switch version of Trouble Witches Final through an emulator reveals that the game is programmed to load the assets as fast as possible, and this loading problem goes away so clearly the reason for more powerful hardware is to simply brute force all of this inefficient bloated code, especially if it's a Multiplatform release.

Part of the reason for the 5 year gap for Strive to arrive on switch is because they wanted a flagship fighting game on the switch to not treat its customer base as 2nd class citizens because rollback net code is not something you just push a button and have it "just work," hence why Strive appearing almost as full-featured as its counterparts on more powerful systems is a big deal.

And what's so eww about Steam in comparison to any given console store platform? That sounds suspiciously partisan to me.

> Be me
> Buy hundreds of dollars worth of games on steam, or find out a boxed copy of a game is nothing more than a glorified steam key
> Get your steam account hacked
> Get control back of your hacked account, only to realize the hacker violated Steam's TOS on it
> Try to explain your situation, but Steam gives you the middle finger instead
> Lose all of the games on your catalog due to circumstances beyond your control and a vast majority of them are not DRM-free and won't give you an offline installer

That's why I say steam is gross.

[pablumatic]

And what's so eww about Steam in comparison to any given console store platform? That sounds suspiciously partisan to me.

Its not the reason dai jou bu has noted, but there's apparently very politically charged Steam forums. At least from my reading from other video game communities. With the complaint being Valve does little to clean it up.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/steam-i ... st-groups/

I've never used Steam forums myself. Steam is purely a game store/launcher for me.

[Lander]

Translation: "We demand more powerful hardware to brute force our code since we can't be arsed to figure out how to optimize it for weaker hardware."

No, not really. Yes in a sense, since that's very much a thing in the industry noosphere, but isn't what the quoted paragraph is going for at all.

Getting your code to run on Switch isn't hard, because that path has been trodden for more or less every toolchain due to its popularity, and the NDA-gated support channels are thus full of worked examples (and drop-in code) designed to speed the process.

Getting it to run -well- is a game-specific affair that sits on top of that, and is still nowhere near a five-year undertaking. That's enough time to rebuild your entire codebase from scratch twice over, which I'd hope would be enough tries to get it right.

I'm currently playing Virgo Versus the Zodiac, and there's moments in the game where it would randomly slow down on the switch version, and it's only using sprite-based graphics. "So, it's an RPG anyway," you might reply, to which I would say those moments where it slows down? It happens during combat where you need to press the button at the right time, and I have no idea when the game's going to slow down or randomly pause because it's that unpredictable, and pressing the button at the wrong time can mean the difference between a successful block, or getting your character one-shot. Yeah, stroking their beards indeed.

VVtZ is built in Game Maker. That's not exactly the professional software engineer's tool of choice for high-performance embedded code.

It probably could run well (as per the old Unity isn't bad, its users are adage,) but you may be overestimating the technical acumen and budget of its quaint indie studio, who likely had neither the five years to spare or the requisite beard.

"That's not a shmup!" you'd then reply. Ok, then why does Trouble Witches Final take over 5000 years to load the next stage on the switch when the xbox 360 port or other versions of the same game over the years doesn't have this problem? Running the switch version of Trouble Witches Final through an emulator reveals that the game is programmed to load the assets as fast as possible, and this loading problem goes away so clearly the reason for more powerful hardware is to simply brute force all of this inefficient bloated code, especially if it's a Multiplatform release.

I wouldn't make such excuses accept nothing less than technical excellence.

And well, poor software design then? It's more common than you might think. They could have implemented efficient asset streaming given the time and know-how, but there are various factors (limited time, outdated programmer mentality, hard-to-maintain legacy codebase, simple risk-aversion) that likely got in the way of that.

Part of the reason for the 5 year gap for Strive to arrive on switch is because they wanted a flagship fighting game on the switch to not treat its customer base as 2nd class citizens because rollback net code is not something you just push a button and have it "just work," hence why Strive appearing almost as full-featured as its counterparts on more powerful systems is a big deal.

Rollback doesn't really factor into the Switch performance conversation. Since networking is all standardized protocols, porting netcode between platforms is trivial, and it doesn't tend to be particularly CPU heavy. That's a higher-level system design thing.

Further, Strive is Unreal-based, which saps credence from the lead time angle. UE is the poster child for getting up-and-running quickly on the latest platforms, not to mention seeing significant FG-centric code contributions from Namco by way of Tekken 7.

Now, it is an absolute bastard to work with, but that's abated somewhat if you work at a big studio that pays Epic for support in your native language (and timezone) of choice.

> Be me
> Buy hundreds of dollars worth of games on steam, or find out a boxed copy of a game is nothing more than a glorified steam key
> Get your steam account hacked
> Get control back of your hacked account, only to realize the hacker violated Steam's TOS on it
> Try to explain your situation, but Steam gives you the middle finger instead
> Lose all of the games on your catalog due to circumstances beyond your control and a vast majority of them are not DRM-free and won't give you an offline installer

That's why I say steam is gross.

Damn, that's awful; condolences for your collection. I've mulled that around as a nightmare 'what if' before now, and it just seems like it'd encourage piracy in the long run. Life finds a way, and all that.

Though at the same time, it's a risk with any walled-garden store controlled by a big entity that doesn't give a toss about the individual (i.e. all of them) and is safely hunkered down behind the latest incarnation of fallible - yet plausibly deniable - corporate cyber-security (i.e. also all of them.)

For instance, Sony putting user accounts into the red for a variety of reasons, and forcing them to buy gift cards to climb back into good standing and regain access to their paid-for content. They're all awful, given the opportunity.

Its not the reason dai jou bu has noted, but there's apparently very politically charged Steam forums. At least from my reading from other video game communities. With the complaint being Valve does little to clean it up.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/steam-i ... st-groups/

I've never used Steam forums myself. Steam is purely a game store/launcher for me.

I don't know about politically charged specifically - that kind of rhetoric seems to creep into any open crack, and I wouldn't trust mainstream press to do due diligence and evaluate instead of sounding the alarm at the first sign of 4chan.

But the Steam forums are, without a doubt, absolute unmitigated shite; smaller games can be okay, but anything remotely prominent is guaranteed to be riddled with systemic abuse and brazen dickery.

(And is probably a motivating case for the other platforms, save Ninty with its cute MiiVerse stuff, staying well away from the idea!)

[dai jou bu]

No, not really. Yes in a sense, since that's very much a thing in the industry noosphere, but isn't what the quoted paragraph is going for at all.

Sure, but the conversation was eventually going to end up to this conclusion anyway and wanted to accelerate to it without jumping down several rabbit holes of why game X on switch performs Y task so poorly is because Z codebase was using snake oil and the wrong incantations so if we throw the goblin into the acid pit using a sledgehammer it'll solve that problem, but the switch doesn't have that. Just about every arc systems game released on the switch deliberately omitted rollback net code for their fighting games if it was available on more powerful platforms, so this problem is not as simple as you make it to be. Even Guilty Gear Strive is going to isolate its switch player base from the playstation and PC platforms when it releases, so it clearly looks like this version of strive is a complete rebuild of the game specifically targeting switch hardware.

[Lander]

The conclusion where it becomes clear that you're speaking with authority on a subject you lack the knowledge to substantiate, and are willing to employ disingenuous rhetorical devices to mask that fact and 'win the argument', so to speak?

All right then. Nothing to see here that isn't self-evident.

[dai jou bu]

If I’m right, cool. If not, then I’m wrong and I’ll admit it. You don’t seem to have any concrete, objective answers for the examples I’ve pointed out, only possible theories as to why they’re underperforming on switch.

The bottom line for this entire discourse was to emphasize G.Rev focusing their resources to one platform to minimize weird stuff from happening, and even then they still screw up with home ports lol

[m.sniffles.esq]

When I got on the bus this morning and turned on my Switch, seeing an Under Defeat tile next to a Strania tile warmed my heart a little, I won't lie. Truth be told, my heart needed warming, it's like -6 out there (-21 to you weirdos that still do metric.)

If I’m right, cool.

I'm wrong like 98% of the time, and I'm still cool as fuck. Just saying.

[dai jou bu]

I'm not as cool as you are sir, for it was only -10 Fahrenheit this morning and some of the carbonated drinks I left inside my car exploded as I wasn't expecting the temperature to drop that much overnight, which wasn't cool at all.

But yeah, it's pretty funny that both this game and GGST get released for switch on the same date. Still gonna wait for the physical release though, even if it takes over a year for it to come out, since if the delay is that long it'll have the last supported patches on them too.

[m.sniffles.esq]

Well... It's Strania

I must still be real awesome at it because I ranked in the top 50 on my first play (actually I think it has more to do with the fact there's only like 70 people on the leaderboards...)

Really, the game should just do away with the bomb (or 'OD' or whatever) as the only time I've ever pressed it was attempting to figure out what the buttons do. In actually playing, 99% of deaths are because I'm struggling with the fucking weapons, and killed by something I didn't even see. Thus, making the bomb kind of useless.

But yeah, it's the same:

"Okay, the arrow is pointing to my right side, so the piece of shit weapon installed on my right will be replaced. FUCK!! How'd it replace the one on the left?? The fucking arrow was pointing to the right. How the fuck... Oh, I just died"

Strania I know and love

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Yep sure enough, "Strania: The Stella Machina EX" stg courtesy of G.Rev themselves, appeared on the USA region Switch eShop at 9:00am PST "right on the dot" today, 1/23/2025. With an MSRP of $14.99 usd and is a 869mb d/l at best. It does have proper online leaderboard support for both sides of Strania and Vower military forces indeed.

If you check out the Staff Credit, you'll see all the folks whom had a hand in getting the Switch port of S:TSM-EX out the door in a timely manner (even fellow shmupper shoutime aka Shou is listed in the end credits -- how cool is that?).

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[DenimDemon]

Game is a looker on the oled screen.


And I have to relearn it once again. Since I'm on a SDOJ vibe right now...this will wait a bit.

[sunnshiner]

"Okay, the arrow is pointing to my right side, so the piece of shit weapon installed on my right will be replaced. FUCK!! How'd it replace the one on the left?? The fucking arrow was pointing to the right. How the fuck... Oh, I just died"

Strania I know and love

+1 WHY DO I HAVE THREE SWORDS? AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH

Also, fuck the stage 3 boss.

It's a pretty game and I'm shit at it but I don't hate it. I don't know why

[M.Knight]

"Okay, the arrow is pointing to my right side, so the piece of shit weapon installed on my right will be replaced. FUCK!! How'd it replace the one on the left?? The fucking arrow was pointing to the right. How the fuck... Oh, I just died"

Yeah it's kinda wild how G.Rev went out of their way to make a weapon switch system inspired by older shmups except even worse lol. At least the weapons don't cycle or anything...but that also means you really need to precisely remember what is where through the entire game. I imagine that won't be much of an issue once you have routed your weapon switches and it sounds like a pretty cool game once you get over that initial bump (and also remember the boss gotchas and quirks like your own mothership trying to kill you as you try to defend it), but yeah. It looks like Radirgy/Brave Blade but plays more like Toaplan, meh

[m.sniffles.esq]

I imagine that won't be much of an issue once you have routed your weapon switches

I've had this game since it was released on the 360, and it's still an issue.

The problem being, once you know what weapon you like to have in a particular situation, getting it into the correct slot is still very much an issue, As even when you think you have it lined up perfectly, it will still mystically, magically replace the weapon on the other side than what you intended. The only way to combat this, is to make sure whatever weapon you know you'll absolute need, and can not stand to have replaced is in the back. But usually, while your attention is consumed by putzing around with this, something kills you

They could have prevented this by having the replaced weapon float around in case of accident, That way you could just pick it back up. But doing so would ruin the parts where they purposefully try to screw you by spawning ill-suited weapons.

[EmperorIng]

It takes a few tries to learn how to pick up weapons. There's the odd mistake here and there but it just takes playing the game for a few hours before it clicks. Most of the time it's because you are trying to pick up the weapon too low on the screen. It's also good practice to stop what you are doing, switch to the appropriate weapon you want to switch, and then move into the weapon you want to swap, horizontally if possible. Also note that your Fentanyl OverDose mode is useful in giving you time to kill large enemies, or lots of groups of enemies to give you breathing room.

I would recommend learning the stages a bit to best optimize your weapon pick-up skills, as well as learning how to use all of your weapons.

With how much they nerfed the difficulty in the new port (boss health melts instantly on Normal it seems, not sure about Hard), even picking the wrong weapons does not seem like a barrier to 1cc'ing the game anymore.