Ray'z Arcade Chronology [Taito x M2] - PS4/Switch [2023]

[kid aphex]

Not sure if this is perfectly accurate or not, but I think this explains the frustration:

What a nightmare.

[cfx]

Not sure if this is perfectly accurate or not, but I think this explains the frustration:

That seems consistent with what I wrote.

I can see it being frustrating to some I guess, but really, I think Dariusburst AC and Dariusburst CS are best considered as two completely different games. They share some things but play completely differently. Personally I was happy to be able to get just Dariusburst AC EX+ without having to have CS along for the ride.

Everything missing from Dariusburst Another Chronicle EX+ are modes or ships that were only part of Chronicle Saviors (CS) mode, and CS Core contains only things related to that mode.

The arranged stage maybe coulld be considered an exception, but as it's only in CS Core it only exists in a CS form, so it wouldn't be in Dariusburst EX anyway.


Why do people refer to CS mode as 16x9 mode? It still has significant letterbox bars and hence certainly is not 16x9.

[Steven]

Yeah, this is why I just want them to make one release with everything. The content is already made, and I don't want anything else. Just put it all together and sell it that way so I can buy it, preferably on PC. No excuses, Taito.

[cfx]

Isn't United Games Entertainment GmbH (ININ Games and Strictly Limited Games) the one to blame for most of this?

Seems SOP for anything that they license, that they require that the Japanese originals also have to be compromised in some way: Cotton Reboot got its English translation removed with a patch, the various Space Invaders collections are missing some of the games, and if I am not mistaken something similar happened to the Wonder Boy/Monster World collections.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Does the Switch variant Ray's Arcade Chronology CE set include the single stage of R-Gear if pre-ordered through Play Asia?

I know if the same set is pre-ordered through SLG, it's included from the get-go.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Ms. Tea]

No. Only the western Strictly Limited release has R-Gear on the cartridge. In Japan, R-Gear is exclusive to Amazon Prime Day preorders from last year.

[DenimDemon]

Here iam once again, promising myself I won’t get digital day 1 when I’ve already preordered SLG release.

Just checked the digital price. Yikes. Yeah I’ll wait for the SLG card.

[Steven]

I can't believe I just now realized that this releases IN ONLY TWO DAYS. Excitement exists. It is a real emotion and I am experiencing it RIGHT THE FUCK NOW.

Is SLG actually shipping this stuff this year or will you have to wait until 2025 for them to actually ship it?

Mine will be here in 2 days. PS4 LE with the massive set with everything, including the 3D crystal and the record that I will never use since I don't have (room for) a record player + Switch regular version, with R-Gear for both.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

I remember when Working Designs had it's $10,000 usd contest with it's PSX release of Raystorm back in late 1997. I entered it and hoped for the best. Got an unexpected bubble wrap envelope in the mail with a cool full-color WD Raystorm mouse pad as a consolation prize (+ a letter thanking me for participating in their contest) and managed to place in the top 10 overall contest ranking.

WD had another $10,000 usd contest with it's PSX Ray Crisis release -- entered that one as well and didn't hear back from them. Oh well, at least I tried my best.

The cool Pocket station game of "Pocket Ray" takes a whopping 14 out of 15 blocks of memory if d/l'ed to a Pocket station setup from the PSX RC game disc. Of course, SCEA didn't sell/distribute the Pocket station stateside within the 2000-2001 year timeframe (making it another missed business opportunity with the PSX gaming platform). WD, however, did include Pocket Ray support in the NTSC U/C release of RC for completeness.

Sure am looking forward to this Ray'z Arcade Chronology, it'll well be worth the wait.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[mirkvid]

Looking forward to this one as well. I fired up some Layer Section last week to get hyped. I remember playing this as Galactic Attack back in the day and being blown away at the presentation. I never played the other games in the series, so looking forward to that too.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

None of my local arcade joints had gotten in a Taito Ray Force arcade pcb conversion kit back in 1993-1994, so I was clueless to it's existence at that point in time. Would've gladly played it if it was setup properly in an Dynamo upright cab.

Again, Raystorm was nowhere to be found in the local arcades as well.

Of course, the Taito G-Net powered Ray Crisis remained an Japan game center exclusive due to Taito banning it's G-Net hardware & software for export sale/distribution in the USA back in 1998-2001 (considering that arcade parent Taito of Japan had shut it's Taito of America arcade subsidiary a few years prior to it's G-Net arcade debut). It was possible to buy a G-Net + one G-Card game but easily north of $2,000+ usd if you had the right connections to procure one during the early 2000s era. Not to mention that Taito didn't make very many G-Cards of Ray Crisis, hence it's high prices on the secondary arcade gamer's collector market nowadays.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Dave_K.]

Well I know for a fact that a certain PC Engine Fan X! has a GNet mobo upgraded to the last bios released by Taito, but wasn't sure if you had the Raycrisis cart.

[hamfighterx]

Looking forward to this one as well. I fired up some Layer Section last week to get hyped. I remember playing this as Galactic Attack back in the day and being blown away at the presentation. I never played the other games in the series, so looking forward to that too.

Yup I was playing some of the Switch S-Tribute Layer Section/Galactic Attack last month and it really got me in the mood.

I have the SLG Switch standard edition cart ordered, and was kinda thinking maybe I'd download the PS4 version once it released. But then I got to thinking that I actually DO want the soundtrack CDs and Blu-ray and book... so ordered the PS4 special edition from Amazon.jp. Now I'm so hyped for it that I'm gonna have to restrain myself from downloading on PSN while waiting a few days for my physical PS4 copy to arrive

[DenimDemon]

I still have my Pal Raystorm that I bought at a video store after release. It’s a very special game to me. Played for thousands of hours!
Can’t wait to get my hands in this..

[Steven]

Oh shit, Amazon emailed me my R-Gear codes. Time to go download it and try it.

lol neither of them work. They might not be usable until tomorrow.

They also shipped my games, which will be here tomorrow, but although I ordered them together Amazon separated them into two shipments for some reason.

Alright, now that it's the 9th, Switch R-Gear code worked. PS4 code still doesn't work. How odd.

[BIL]

What a time to be alive, eh lads.



The sublime and the ridiculous, together as one.

[Steven]

Well, I played R-Gear. It took me 3 minutes and 34 seconds to see everything there is. I unfortunately died once because I wasn't paying attention, but there isn't much there. You could play it for score if you really wanted to, but once you beat the boss you will have to take a screenshot or something immediately because once the boss finishes exploding you get an insta-game over.

[Phellan Wolf]

Well, I played R-Gear. It took me 3 minutes and 34 seconds to see everything there is. I unfortunately died once because I wasn't paying attention, but there isn't much there. You could play it for score if you really wanted to, but once you beat the boss you will have to take a screenshot or something immediately because once the boss finishes exploding you get an insta-game over.

No online scoreboards on this one?
Looks like a missed oportunity to make a caravan with this one

[BIL]

tbh my hope for R-Gear was always that it might prompt an Aleste 3-style continuation on its home hardware... and herald a new era of STG development on classic hardware platforms, as virtualised by M2 - haha ok I'll stop there. ;3

[Steven]

Well, I played R-Gear. It took me 3 minutes and 34 seconds to see everything there is. I unfortunately died once because I wasn't paying attention, but there isn't much there. You could play it for score if you really wanted to, but once you beat the boss you will have to take a screenshot or something immediately because once the boss finishes exploding you get an insta-game over.

No online scoreboards on this one?
Looks like a missed oportunity to make a caravan with this one

There is nothing. No replays, no leaderboards, and it does not seem to save your scores locally. Just a few settings and that's about it. It does have 12 save states, but it's so short and easy that there's nothing to really practice.

[Phellan Wolf]

Well, I played R-Gear. It took me 3 minutes and 34 seconds to see everything there is. I unfortunately died once because I wasn't paying attention, but there isn't much there. You could play it for score if you really wanted to, but once you beat the boss you will have to take a screenshot or something immediately because once the boss finishes exploding you get an insta-game over.

No online scoreboards on this one?
Looks like a missed oportunity to make a caravan with this one

There is nothing. No replays, no leaderboards, and it does not seem to save your scores locally. Just a few settings and that's about it.

I knew Taito were a bit lazy but M2?? Come on they’d better come up with something much better than The new Aleste games. I just really hope to see R-Gear to be completed and launched as a standalone release

[EmperorIng]

I'm not too upset about NOT ordering (or rather, pre-ordering ) a version with R-Gear. I'll just enjoy the videos uploaded online.

[Steven]

I've been attempting to redeem my PS4 R-Gear for hours and it's still not letting me do it. I don't buy digital games on consoles so I have no idea when PSN updates, but at this point I'm probably going to go to sleep (as I sit here drinking a bottle of Coca-Cola because yay caffeine at 0159) and try again at noon or whatever. Ray'z will probably be here by them, though, so R-Gear will get sidelined anyway since I already beat it lol

[Rastan78]

It seems like a small miracle the R-Gear code was even found, dumped and made playable. I think the idea here is to present it unaltered as a rare glimpse at some very early game code. A pretty cool and almost unprecedented thing in spite of the annoying preorder shenanigans.

Better to focus on the 3 main games in the collection than go down a rabbit hole trying to turn R-Gear into something it's not IMO.

[BIL]

I'm just floored this even exists tbh Christ, a Ray'z anthology by M2... still sounds like an April Fool's joke. About in time for it too.

Decided to let it finish updating to v1.02 before starting, tbh I'm being kept quite entertained by fucking Turbo Force, the pachinko machine cunningly disguised as a car STG.

[Rastan78]

Same here. I remember praying for this after Darius was announced by M2 years ago. Well if they're doing F3 now why not Rayforce too? Now here we are finally.

And I'm so glad it's the full deal and not that nearly all the way there, yet slightly blue ball inducing treatment that the Vanias and Contras got.

... still sounds like an April Fool's joke. About in time for it too.

But where is Ibara Black Black Label?

[BIL]

Just as cute as G-Darius HD's loading animation ^w^



Whoa, it's beautiful Full English text via System Language setting, just like Cozmic and G-DHD before it.

RayStorm was a particularly big want for me, having a long-time grudge with the rugged ol' PS1 ver, and never quite getting along with the blurry PS2 port, so this is especially welcome. Razor-sharp and silky-smooth, as expected after G-DHD. I swear these ports have less than 0f input lag, some DeLorean techmologies going on at M2.

And a proper RayCrisis home release, and true reference-standard Rayforce... blimey, they done good.

[Steven]

Well, before I go to sleep since it's past 0300 now, I'll ask a question: does anyone know what the autofire rate on Layer Section is? That's probably what I want to use for RayForce since I like that rate of fire, whatever it is. The 30Hz on R-Gear seemed pretty close, but I don't know.

I don't use an alarm on weekdays, so I hope that I won't sleep for too long and that they'll deliver my Ray'z right around the time I wake up. It's probably going to be massive, especially since it has that record that I'm sadly never going to get to listen to in all likelihood, so I'll maybe take some pictures or something once I get it if someone wants me to since I don't know if anyone besides me actually got the huge version.

[Jeneki]

BATTLE IS BEGUN

[BIL]

God damn, RayStorm Neo HD is legit gorgeous for a lover of the old PS1 poly aesthetic like me... genuinely enhances the experience, I'd never appreciated how meticulously-detailed the first stage's cityscape and third's valley are. It perfectly preserves the innate foibles, just makes everything pop. Should've expected after G-DHD but RS has always been nearer my heart.

The lockon timer gadget is super nice to have - I was always a bit foggy on how the timeout worked, this clears everything right up. So rad pushing it to the brink while setting up chains. Also the R-Gray 2's chain lightning is one of the coolest weapons in the whole genre, but everyone knew that already. Like walking the dog, and by "dog," I mean "50,000f serpent of righteous scorching demolition tearing apart everything in its undulating wake." The way the arc can freely leap between ground and air has always been so tactilely satisfying, like controlling an unstoppable force of nature.

These are genuinely some of the finest archival works ever produced, not just in gaming, but art preservation in general. M2 are our Criterion; long may they last!

... still sounds like an April Fool's joke. About in time for it too.

But where is Ibara Black Black Label?

We await its return ;-;7

The Theme of Ibara Black Black Label

img

BATTLE IS BEGUN

How'd I miss that...