I'm so glad that Hamster's Arcade Archives are a thing.

[Mero]

It's not very good, imo. (Master of Weapon, that is)

[AGermanArtist]

I'll prob get it, I mean I bought Megablast.

[Skyknight]

Two genuinely minor titles in a row (i.e. not really cult classic material), while not following the basic order of Namco-Konami-Taito that's typically been the case for around the past five years to my recollection. What are they bringing out next week, then? Violent Storm? (I'm not sure Metamorphic Force would have the same demand, certainly not Monster Maulers.)

[AGermanArtist]

It looks like a cross between Halley's Comet and Scramble Formation/Tokio. Totally new to me. I haven't even had it on MAME.
The Hamster video on the JPN PSN looks fun. I like the trails effects from the missiles. Everything looks chunky.

[Samildanach]

While Master of Weapon, Scramble Formation/Tokio and Mega blast are some of Taito's weakest shooters, I am glad we are getting the opportunity to get them all. Also bodes well for the future as we hopefully should start getting more of Taito's 90's releases in the not so distant future.
Megablast was a guilty pleasure of mine despite it's limitations.

[jehu]

This is a personal, though slightly wilted kra- kow for me. Master of Weapon’s reputation always seemed like it had been dominated by reactions to the weak Mega Drive port rather than the Arcade game itself. About time for the original to be readily available for general testing and reappraisal.

I’m having fun with it in my limited testing. Taito’s clearly trying to use the ground-to-air biplanar style to experiment with STG spectacle, and - while they don’t have it quite figured out here - there are some really cool quasi-3D moments.

Spoiler

Clutching my pearls at the in-game date. How many buildings are you going to force me to bring to ruin, Taito?

If there had been no Master of Weapon, would we have gotten the much more refined air-to-ground spectacle that is RayForce?

The Ham-Stars delivering again with solid secondary options - including an aesthetics-only ship select, and very useful rapid fire options. The rapid fire options have detailed use-case rundowns in the Manual, so check that out before you really dive in.

As a STG, it’s a better experience than Megablast at the very least. The weapons system is better considered, and it can be a challenge to manage air and ground enemies. Bullet wobble is a huge bitch here. Plus, it’s a little gray aesthetically, though I kind of dig the enemy design for the aliens and some bosses. The boring, repetitive backgrounds seem to be a consequence of the desire to ramp up the scrolling speed. Aliens running along the highway are pretty cool, though. Difficulty-wise, it won’t fold over like a cardboard cutout like the aforementioned. Music, unfortunately, is pretty bad - but not Mega Drive version bad. Charming B- or C-tier Taito.

[Turrican]

It's not really a licensing issue (or, I guess it could actually be? I doubt they ever even considered that) - more like they took some inspiration from the track, and somewhere down the road someone decided that the similarities were too apparent for them to be able to keep the music in there. Maybe a C&D was filed, or maybe it was just some executive who didn't want to take any chances? I'm not sure if this has even been documented, but I never heard about any actual lawsuits, while I'm also 100% certain Taito never licensed Somewhere Over The Rainbow to be used in the game in the first place.
To be perfectly honest, I think the songs are way too different for it to actually be an issue. There's like half of a note progression which calls out to that song, and that's it.

Long story short: I should have come here instead of wasting €6.99 on impulse.

The issue however stands, lawsuit or nor: especially in something like ACA that often gives all sorts of extra option to recreate the original feeling, things like phosphor burnouts and such. The original audio should have been accessible via audio options. Doubly so if no lawsuit is involved.

As It stands, I just put It on the pile or ear-piercing ports and stick to other options.

[BrianC]

It's not really a licensing issue (or, I guess it could actually be? I doubt they ever even considered that) - more like they took some inspiration from the track, and somewhere down the road someone decided that the similarities were too apparent for them to be able to keep the music in there. Maybe a C&D was filed, or maybe it was just some executive who didn't want to take any chances? I'm not sure if this has even been documented, but I never heard about any actual lawsuits, while I'm also 100% certain Taito never licensed Somewhere Over The Rainbow to be used in the game in the first place.
To be perfectly honest, I think the songs are way too different for it to actually be an issue. There's like half of a note progression which calls out to that song, and that's it.

Long story short: I should have come here instead of wasting €6.99 on impulse.

The issue however stands, lawsuit or nor: especially in something like ACA that often gives all sorts of extra option to recreate the original feeling, things like phosphor burnouts and such. The original audio should have been accessible via audio options. Doubly so if no lawsuit is involved.

As It stands, I just put It on the pile or ear-piercing ports and stick to other options.

It was known the music would be altered. There hasn't been a port of Rainbow Islands with unaltered music for a long time. I didn't find it ear-piercing and found the music to be better than the Legends 2 version.

[hamfighterx]

Two genuinely minor titles in a row (i.e. not really cult classic material), while not following the basic order of Namco-Konami-Taito that's typically been the case for around the past five years to my recollection. What are they bringing out next week, then? Violent Storm? (I'm not sure Metamorphic Force would have the same demand, certainly not Monster Maulers.)

Your recollection is not accurate, that hasn't ever been a consistent trend. And in fact, I think the specific Namco-Konami-Taito-Other order you mentioned last time has only ever happened once over the course of the Arcade Archives series. I actually broke down the last ~6 months a couple pages back.

Heck, they didn't even START releasing Namco games until September 23, 2021 with Xevious and Pac Man, less than 2.5 years ago, so I have no clue where your idea of some consistent trend for five years is coming from. And for Konami, they had a good number of releases in 2019 through 2021, then a nearly 20 month break fairly shortly after we started getting Namco titles. AA went from December 23, 2021 (Xexex/Orius) to August 17, 2023 (Devil World) without a single Konami game.

That being said, since Konami has come back into the rotation in August, Hamster does seem to frequently (but certainly not always) do batches of four games with Namco Taito Konami and Other, in no particular order. Including Master of Weapon, the last three games have been from Tecmo, Namco, and Taito... so it wouldn't be surprising to see another Konami entry next week.

[hamfighterx]

Oh, and here is... quite a Master of Weapon thread. viewtopic.php?f=1&t=68644

Like EmperorIng, I am very impressed that someone made a single post here, and it was to praise Master of Weapon.

[jehu]

Oh, and here is... quite a Master of Weapon thread. viewtopic.php?f=1&t=68644

Like EmperorIng, I am very impressed that someone made a single post here, and it was to praise Master of Weapon.

Will Master of Weapon guy come again to grace us on this hallowed occasion?

The music from this game depresses me like nothing else.

This sounds like a sad clown in a haunted house somewhere in Lebanon.

Some say MoW guy only appears if you go to the Lebanese haunted house on that fateful day in September, play this song, stare into the funhouse mirror, toss ashes from the Towers over your shoulder and whisper ‘Master of Weapon’ three times.

[SeafoamGaming]

man the stupid direct rumors and it being a partner showcase more than likely just makes me not care for it at all but then someone asked me what would from one and thinking about it, uh...

I mean if they launched console archives finally that would be fucking dope but i'm not expecting such a thing until Switch 2 launch day tbh; thinking that may be a thing meant for it rather than current platforms so Hamster can keep their pace up. I would love that trademark to go somewhere...

[Turrican]

It was known the music would be altered. There hasn't been a port of Rainbow Islands with unaltered music for a long time. I didn't find it ear-piercing and found the music to be better than the Legends 2 version.

The speculation was that Hamster had delayed this game up to this late to sort that out. It was mentioned in these forums as well. Of course, the fact that they meddled it on the recent Megadrive Mini 2 was already a bad omen...

[Sumez]

The new music isn't bad, but it definitely is quite a gaping omission when you're used to the game. At least every other piece of music in the game is intact, obviously. IMO the rendition of "Cosmic Air Way" is way cooler than the one in Darius 1.

I'm definitely not selling my PCBs just yet

[Turrican]

The Amiga port of RI [...] biggest off-putting aspect however is exactly the up-to-jump controls, which makes exact control of rainbows extremely difficult to pull off. Stuff like making a rainbow platform to jump off, jumping ahead and firing a rainbow, destroying it mid-air, and then holding jump to immediately bounce off the rainbows below you, is nearly impossible on Amiga, especially when you want to control your horizontal positioning at the same time. I really want to play it some time with the "up" button remapped to a face button, which shouldn't be terribly difficult to wire up, just to be able to properly compare how it really plays with the arcade game.

Wait, I think RI Amiga allows a second button?

It's a disappointment that the port the same company (Ocean) also made for NES is completely different. Obviously the NES would have to make some compromises, but I'd love to see a game on that platform that plays like the arcade game - I'm also not a big fan of Taito's own port for the Famicom/US NES. Software Creations at least managed to pull off a really stellar conversion of TNZS.

Ocean was an umbrella company but the Amiga was commissioned to Graftgold. The NES one was done by an unspecified Ocean internal team. it is supposedly a lot harder to get the diamonds in it, as they must fall on specific tiles, not just portions of the screen. Still, I'd say overall a stronger effort than the lackluster aisystem tokyo early FC/SMS of old.

[MJR]

I never listen to Rainbow Island's sounds anyway, since 80's I've put Iron Maiden's Piece of mind on my earphones when I start a session of Rainbow Islands so the altered audio couldn't bother me less. (In case you are wondering, I listened to Faith No More when playing Super Mario World and Burzum when playing Yoshi's Island. I can't f*cking stand the music in any of those "cute" platformers)

Been having one go of Rainbow Islands every evening, though most of my deaths still happen when the character does the speeded up autoclimb on the top of the rainbow, I am at least getting used on how to do microjumps by tapping quickly the jump button. Works rather well.

I also got frustrated on dying repeatedly when trying to get diamonds in correct order (and always getting to boss with diamonds missing), so I switched to having simple trash runs where I just try to get to the end of the game. It is much better way to learn the game; if you try to play it perfectly when you are not even used to controls or level layouts yet, you will just burn out due to endless frustration.

[AGermanArtist]

Master of Weapon is not a great game, but I like it... a lot. It feels like a genuine oddity.

[BrianC]

I like the AA release of Rainbow Islands, especially with the rainbow hints, but I'm glad MiSTer can play the PCE-CD version.

[jehu]

I’ve come to really, truly, unironically like Master of Weapon.

Generally I put a few hours into these new releases and shelve them, but this one has drawn me in. The timed bomb system is really fun - good risk / reward system with the ‘Wide’ and ‘Guide’ shots. The stages can sometimes be a little over-long - especially the battleship - but generally the layouts feel pretty good. And there are just so many creative ideas thrown in here. The aliens skittering off the highway into the water, the race up the rock wall, the caked-up demons flying overhead. Charming moments from when scaling effects could WOW all by themselves. I always thought of Master of Weapon as something on par with Data East’s Darwin games, but the vision here was much greater.

Ultimately it does earn its own obscurity through some bland aesthetic choices and the profoundly stinky music. However, those failures - shared by Taito STG predecessors like Scramble Formation and Fighting Hawk - will then become an area of focus in Gun Frontier and Metal Black. As an intermediary step between the Fighting Hawk era and the Gun Frontier era of Taito verts, Master of Weapon makes a lot of sense. It’s not going to make your top shmups list, but it’s a genuine treat if you enjoy playing through the progression of these genre histories yourself.

[valziman]

Fighting Hawk was mentioned. I've been waiting for this.

I've given it a lot of time. I like it very much. Slow plane, sniping tanks, tense. Planning and some precision required. Recovery is very possible, but shot power builds up sooooo much that you really freak out at the first loss, but recovery battling is thrillingly white-knuckled.

I can't say it's better than anything it's similar to, but it's just right...

Except that horrible shot sound. It's awful and too loud. Yes, the music is a perfect fit. Everyone complains about it, but it's right.

[Sumez]

I also got frustrated on dying repeatedly when trying to get diamonds in correct order (and always getting to boss with diamonds missing), so I switched to having simple trash runs where I just try to get to the end of the game. It is much better way to learn the game; if you try to play it perfectly when you are not even used to controls or level layouts yet, you will just burn out due to endless frustration.

You definitely shouldn't try going for freestyling diamond orders until you have a decent mastery of the controls!
But I do recommend at least trying for it on the first island. Recovery becomes extremely tough in the second half of the game (islands 6-10) if you don't have at least a couple of the permanent bonuses.

Here's what I'd recommend - the very first stage of the game is extremely easy, and you can very easily get every diamond up to Blue risk-free with some patience. Once you have those, getting a Purple on the next three stages shouldn't be a problem.
When the game starts wait around on the left side before scrolling the screen, for the first enemies to turn red, so they will drop down from their ledge. As the first one drops down while facing left, drop a rainbow on it for an easy RED diamond. Meanwhile two more will come towards you at ground level. Drop a rainbow on the next one in the right spot for an ORANGE diamond, and just kill the third however, as it will always drop a shoe.
Then jump up and place a rainbow right beneath the platform where the fourth enemy is walking back and forth, timing a kill for it to land in the YELLOW zone.
Now you should be able to see the fifth one walking around on a far right platform at the top of the screen. Wait before scrolling any further, to not get any more enemies into view, until an arrow appears prompting you to move ahead. Go up as this enemy also turns red and drop a rainbow on it when it is dropping down from its platform - it will land right in the middle of the screen for a GREEN diamond. Kill the bee that appears in the center of the screen for a red potion, and drop a rainbow on the caterpillar that moves in from a high platform on the right, while it's falling down from this platform. It will land where it needs for a CYAN diamond.
Finally, the last caterpillar will be moving in from the left, and it should be easy to drop a rainbow on it while it's moving into the cyan zone, which will cause it to land in the BLUE zone for the sixth diamond that you need.

At this point, water will start rising*, so just hurry to the top and move on with the game. If you mess up for example the yellow diamond, it's pretty easy to adjust, and wait for the one you'd have killed for a green to move further to the left and give you a yellow instead, and then just wait for the other caterpillar to move ahead and drop down from the next platform where you can get a green Getting up to cyan on a single stage is still an extremely strong start, and diamond-collecting in order isn't really a risk after you've gotten the first bunch.

Don't worry about diamond order on the next islands yet. Especially the third island took me a while to manage, due to how much improvisation it requires. But for the first two islands at least, you can learn some extremely reliable patterns.

RI really has a really impressive learning curve due to the depth of the rainbows and how you can utilize them - getting a perfect feel for them takes a long time, and it's also the reason it takes so little to throw me off. An extra frame of input lag, playing on a controller instead of a stick, etc. It's a game that really requires me to get into the zone.
For me I guess, it also took a little extra time because for the first one-to-two years of me playing it, I was exclusively playing at a local arcade, visiting just occasionally, with one credit for each coin I would put into the machine. So it was probably the arcade 1CC that has taken me the longest to achieve. I didn't really get a feel for the game until I first watched someone better than me playing, and getting inspired by how much they werein control of everything. I would later get stuck on Darius island for quite a while until eventually sitting down with the explicit goal of practicing those stages. Rainbow Island has been a journey, but it's a great one.


*) Btw, this should be "obvious", but I think it catches a few beginners off-guard, myself included! The rising water is tied to the screen independent of scrolling - once it starts rising there is no way to outrun it, you just have to continue moving upwards and try to clear the stage before it reaches about halfway up, leaving you with no way to avoid it.

[BrianC]

Ocean was an umbrella company

Makes sense. They also published ports of Parasol Stars.

[MJR]

Fighting Hawk was mentioned. I've been waiting for this.

I've given it a lot of time. I like it very much. Slow plane, sniping tanks, tense. Planning and some precision required. Recovery is very possible, but shot power builds up sooooo much that you really freak out at the first loss, but recovery battling is thrillingly white-knuckled.

I can't say it's better than anything it's similar to, but it's just right...

Except that horrible shot sound. It's awful and too loud. Yes, the music is a perfect fit. Everyone complains about it, but it's right.

Thanks

I was able to carry my diamond hunting -tactics from the amiga version so far that I was still able get the secret door from the first two islands, MOST of the time, but not from third onwards. Third island is also where the differences of monster behaviour and different feel on controls really bite me in the ass, so I was not able to carry my amiga tactics from that point so much any more.

I had one trash run where I completed the island 7 without any permanent power ups, funnily the boss fights were quite manageable even without any powerups, only the toy island boss gave me some grief. If you don't try to get the diamonds in order, it's actually pretty hard to miss getting all 7, so to get the worst ending I actually need to try to get them all in order, in order to be more likely to miss them by the time I reach the boss fight.. which is ironic

I am still not used to the autoclimb on to the top of the rainbow, which is strange, because the amiga version plays the same in this particular aspect, and I don't remember having grief on that. But, perhaps, it's just because it has been a REALLY long time since I mastered the Amiga version..

[ratikal]

Fuck yes!
Struggling with Mystic Warriors scrolling stages - there doesn't appear to be any animation indicating that a zako will fire, and the size of the sprites doesn't give much wiggle room. Particularly frustrating, as this is much more frantic than Sunset Riders from the off, is the lack of a lock button for firing direction.
Puzzled why this never saw a SNES port, wouldn't have taken much scaling back.

In the mines, I can't deal with the two artillery carts entering on the bottom left even after a bit of save state grinding. Too many bullets and won't die fast enough. Other than that, after getting the hang of it, I'm (somehow) finding the autoscrollers less frustrating than the horse stages in Sunset Riders. Despite all the dead time in SR's autoscrollers, there's one or two guys that tend to catch me off guard, and there's no health bar to cushion mistakes.

Necro-quote. I was curious to see how people perceived Mystic Warriors.

I go into detail in the closed captions on how to deal with this section. https://youtu.be/J0DZuJkC1go?t=899

[Sumez]

I always found the mine cart section quite manageable compared to how late in the game it appears. My biggest issue in MW by far is the river raft section

[MJR]

EDIT: I was going to quote Sumez's post, but somehow ended up quoting the wrong post. I was too tired, I guess, from long day's work..

And, instead of edit, I hit the quote button. And noticed it too late. And there is still no way to delete your posts.
This has happened to me more than once since the shmups changed it's interface..

[AGermanArtist]

OH GOD WAT DOES CHEF FITARUS THINK
HE DON'T LIKE IT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9zMFc8vT74

[Sima Tuna]

Chef Fitarus likes everything tho.

[velo]

In the mines, I can't deal with the two artillery carts entering on the bottom left even after a bit of save state grinding. Too many bullets and won't die fast enough. Other than that, after getting the hang of it, I'm (somehow) finding the autoscrollers less frustrating than the horse stages in Sunset Riders. Despite all the dead time in SR's autoscrollers, there's one or two guys that tend to catch me off guard, and there's no health bar to cushion mistakes.

Necro-quote. I was curious to see how people perceived Mystic Warriors.

I go into detail in the closed captions on how to deal with this section. https://youtu.be/J0DZuJkC1go?t=899

Thanks, that's instructive and I doubt I would've come up with it on my own. Does taking it down straight work decently with any of the other characters?

[ratikal]

In the mines, I can't deal with the two artillery carts entering on the bottom left even after a bit of save state grinding. Too many bullets and won't die fast enough. Other than that, after getting the hang of it, I'm (somehow) finding the autoscrollers less frustrating than the horse stages in Sunset Riders. Despite all the dead time in SR's autoscrollers, there's one or two guys that tend to catch me off guard, and there's no health bar to cushion mistakes.

Necro-quote. I was curious to see how people perceived Mystic Warriors.

I go into detail in the closed captions on how to deal with this section. https://youtu.be/J0DZuJkC1go?t=899

Thanks, that's instructive and I doubt I would've come up with it on my own. Does taking it down straight work decently with any of the other characters?

I'm not aware. Yuni might be able to but I've only cleared once with Kojiro.