New G.Rev shooter (Strania XBLA)

[chempop]

It's vertizontal widescreen.

[Deca]

Augh seriously? For whatever reason I thought the trailers showed a vertical screen...guess I was wrong.

That's going to make this much harder for me to play :/

[Udderdude]

It looks like the game area is still 4:3. Would it be that hard to just cut off the unused/darkened portions of the screen?

[defected78]

Game is excellent. Very old school gameplay and music.

Times have changed and developers arent interested in people who tate for 4:3 anymore.

[Klatrymadon]

Got the st4 boss down pat; Zaarock was right about him. Piece of piss. Just haul ass when he dives offscreen, 'cos he's going to zip back up at you. I can see later bosses timing out on you pretty easily if you reach them with dodgy weapons, though. Look after your guns!

[Special World]

It looks like the game area is still 4:3. Would it be that hard to just cut off the unused/darkened portions of the screen?

Why would you? I like it just fine how it is, black bars are boring.

[Zaarock]

Stage 6 boss is nuts.. I wonder what the hell the stage 7 one is going to be (only reachable on hard)

Also, I accidentally got the normal mode 1cc achievement by playing coop with us using like 3 continues. I'm guessing it counts because we never went to the continue screen (one was always alive)

About 4:3, G.Rev posted on facebook about it a bit before release, they're considering a patch with it so I guess you can nag there for results

edit:

What are the extends in the game? I know there is one for Boss 1, then hitting 1,000,000 points? Any after that?

According to an article that Siliconera did on this game, you can get the multiplier over x2.0 at points. Anybody done that yet?

All the extends are score based, I got one at 3mil on my best run so far. I think I've seen over 2.0.. just need to kill a bunch of enemies in overdrive. Can't think of many chances to do that apart from stage 6.

Also, you get big end bonuses for the levels of your weapons, explains the huge score differences in 1ccs

[Special World]

How do the level ups work, exactly? Is it all just based around collecting extras of the powerups you have? I've only gotten vulcan 2 and missile 2. Doesn't seem like you can do that with most weapons, though.

[Zaarock]

The score level ups are from just getting kills with weapons, with the more gimmicky ones it takes less kills to max out. You can upgrade blue weapons by picking the powerup again and in the dlc you'll most likely be able to upgrade the red ones.

[MrMonkeyMan]

It looks like the game area is still 4:3. Would it be that hard to just cut off the unused/darkened portions of the screen?

Why would you? I like it just fine how it is, black bars are boring.

There wouldn't be any black bars because you could zoom in and fill the whole screen if you cut off the edges. They're nice for people with widescreen TVs because at least that extra space is being used for something other than wallpaper, but pointless on a 4:3 screen.

Ok, so sometimes you start stage 4 with a jet pack (beats me why), and you can jettison it if you press the overdrive button, I think.

And how do you upload scores? I've been playing quite a bit today and I still don't have a score on the leaderboards. And on the subject of scores, are the little score bonus popups in japanese for everyone?

[Klatrymadon]

Picking up the jetpack thing makes it easier to control your mech at the beginning, but then totally hamstrings you in the rest of level, where tapping in a direction will lock you in that direction until you press another one.

The pop-ups are in Japanese for me, aye. The leaderboards are a bit weird today. It was showing my first few scores fine, and then acted as though I hadn't played the game at all for a while, and is now showing my latest score again...

[bcass]

And how do you upload scores? I've been playing quite a bit today and I still don't have a score on the leaderboards. And on the subject of scores, are the little score bonus popups in japanese for everyone?

Looks like the Leaderboards are fucked at the minute. My score isn't showing when I select the Friends filter, yet it shows on the Leaderboard in the dash and in the MyRank filter.

As a game, it's OK. Not as good as G.rev's other titles, but it's quirky enough to warrant attention from shmup fans. I can't imagine it's going to entice a single non-shmup fan to the fold. Lack of uploadable/downloadable replays is a major oversight too. All score-driven games should have replays, end of story. The music is ace though. Gonna have to rip the soundtrack data.

[antares]

There's also no support for 16:10 screens. The aspect ratio of the playing area is smaller than 4:3 on my 16:10 VGA monitor. Of course you can always stretch the picture manually on the monitor but if they do a 4:3 patch they could as well fix this too.
Any way to tell them about the issue other than on facebook?

BTW the ingame popups are in japanese on my console too. Could anyone confirm if this is also the case on us or pal machines?

And there are quite a few games out there that don't show your own score in the friends leaderboard, I don't think developers consider this a bug. Still annoying.

[kid aphex]

As a game, it's OK. Not as good as G.rev's other titles, but it's quirky enough to warrant attention from shmup fans. I can't imagine it's going to entice a single non-shmup fan to the fold. Lack of uploadable/downloadable replays is a major oversight too. All score-driven games should have replays, end of story. The music is ace though. Gonna have to rip the soundtrack data.

i agree, a lot
can't help but feel Strania's aesthetics are a bit underwhelming
can't tell if it was budgetary or a conscious decision
we've seen grev produce well-polished games before,
(under defeat's extraordinary level of detail comes to mind)
so what's the deal here? the quality is so disparate:
great explosions, horrible fonts
great direction, horrible front end
great music, some rough textures (glaring texture seam on the horizon, post-lvl 2 boss, damaged my spirit)

still, i like the game way more than i don't

[bcass]

I'd guess the simplicity of many of the graphics comes from budgetary/time constraints. Some of the swirling backgrounds are actually not too bad, but on the whole, the graphics are pretty underwhealming. Enemy designs especially are pretty naff. Still, it is a budget game and if our buying it helps get their older stuff onto XBLA, then it's not all bad.

[denpanosekai]

I am enjoying Strania thoroughly, but wish that the sword was permanently assigned to its own button instead of being part of the cycle.

[Special World]

The score level ups are from just getting kills with weapons, with the more gimmicky ones it takes less kills to max out. You can upgrade blue weapons by picking the powerup again and in the dlc you'll most likely be able to upgrade the red ones.

How can you tell they've leveled up? Is it just apparent from how the shot looks? Will they stay leveled if you get another item, and them re-acquire the one you had before?

[TodayIsForgotten]

The score level ups are from just getting kills with weapons, with the more gimmicky ones it takes less kills to max out. You can upgrade blue weapons by picking the powerup again and in the dlc you'll most likely be able to upgrade the red ones.

How can you tell they've leveled up? Is it just apparent from how the shot looks? Will they stay leveled if you get another item, and them re-acquire the one you had before?

I believe when you see 10 9 8 7 ....1 <--- is when they are powered up. What that really does? I have no idea. I have noticed that once level 4 starts i have all 3 weapons going at once (assuming one isnt the sword). Not sure if this is temporary.

[Remxi]

So does anyone know the exact mechanic for levelling up Red weapons such as Laser and Reflect? Picking up more powerups doesn't seem to make a difference. I'm enjoying this a lot so far, although I find the weapon switching to be quite annoying at times (e.g. accidentally ruining your great weapon config with a useless one just before a boss fight).

[MrMonkeyMan]

Ok, I think I've got this all figured out now.

Leveling up weapons gives you points, but does not increase their power. Those bonuses that appear in the corner have to do with leveling up your weapon. You get more points each time they level up ending with level 10 with 100,000 points.

Powering up weapons can only be done with blue weapons by collecting two of the same weapon in the same slot. Some people are saying you can also power them up simply by shooting enemies with them, but I haven't seen this happen yet.

The overdrive activates a multiplier that increases the longer it's been active. Maxes out at x2 just before it ends (it might go higher, but I haven't seen it happen). Great for finishing off bosses for lots of extra points.

Rank is a complete mystery to me.

End game bonus is massive. Leveling up all the weapons will give you a huge point bonus, like millions and millions of points. I just beat it with a score of 4.1 million then got a bonus 4 million with only 3 weapons maxed out, and the sword was a fairly high level. Who knows what kind of bonus you could get if you maxed out the level of each weapon.

So the scoring seems quite simple actually. Use lots of weapons and use the overdrive on as many high point enemies and bosses as you can.

EDIT
Oh, and I figured out my problem with the leaderboards. I had continues on. I didn't notice the warning at the bottom of the screen when I first turned them on.

[t0yrobo]

I am enjoying Strania thoroughly, but wish that the sword was permanently assigned to its own button instead of being part of the cycle.

Tapping A uses the sword. Kinda funky but it works.

[KNTain]

So, when you level up, say, Reflect, it says "Reflect V.2" or whatever and turns purple but does NOT deal more damage? Kinda surprising. I haven't been able to do it in normal play, I've only seen the V.2 red weapons in training.

Also, where in the game is the handgun? It's pretty hilarious in training.

[TodayIsForgotten]

Man, how upsetting. Has anyone beaten level 5 and then after you beat the level a popup comes up and immediately exits you to dash board? Gay.

[adversity1]

What did the pop-up say?

Did you get disconnected from XBL?

[nZero]

So, when you level up, say, Reflect, it says "Reflect V.2" or whatever and turns purple but does NOT deal more damage? Kinda surprising. I haven't been able to do it in normal play, I've only seen the V.2 red weapons in training.

The stacked V.2 weapons have different characteristics, like the Rocket V.2 gains a slight homing ability. The only weapons you can stack in regular Strania are the blue (Earth-side) weapons like Rocket, Missile, Vulcan, etc. For the red weapons, you might have something to look forward to in the DLC when you play as the enemy side...

[Drachenherz]

Digging the game so far, though I have to get used to the weapons-system, being accustomed to the CAVE-style weaponry, where you don't have to mind which weapon you're using.

Actually, I like the artstyle of this game, a lot. The simplistic graphics aren't that bad at all, they do work for me.

But am I that bad that I haven't gotten farther than level 3 yet?

[TodayIsForgotten]

What did the pop-up say?

Did you get disconnected from XBL?

Hard to say. The popup came up and immediately the game exited out.

On a side-note the level 6 boss is annoying. I dont know how this game is with a stick but the SF pad just doesnt work great with this game. Probably game design, since ive had no issues in any other game. I dont feel confident in nudges and the game feels big at times. Still pretty fun.

[Klatrymadon]

It does feel a bit light and breezy, but I'm finding I can still make small movements and stop on a dime well enough with the SF pad. It's not causing more mistakes, or anything. I'll have to try the normal d-pad and analogue stick to compare...

[Zerst]

Picked it up a bit ago, haven't gotten past the fourth boss yet, despite making it there with plenty of lives left. Seems really memorization-heavy, and scaled such that it's a bit of a pain to see well enough to dodge shit on a non-massive 4:3 tv.

[iconoclast]

Thanks for that info MMM, I kinda misunderstood the scoring system at first but that helped a lot. I 1cc'd Normal and got all but two weapons up to 1st dan I think, so I wound up with an 11 million score. Game's pretty awesome.

I've been playing with the stock Xbox controller and haven't had any problems. I have a stick too, but for I haven't even bothered trying it yet since it feels fine with the dpad to me.